AFRICA 

ITS PARTITION AND 
ITS FUTURE 



HENRY M. STANLEY 

AND OTHERS 



I 







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AFRICA 



AFRICA 

Its Partition and its Future 

BY / 
HENRY M. STANLEY 

AND OTHERS 

With an Introduction 

By harry THURSTON PECK, Ph.D. 
Professor in Columbia University 

With Colored Map in Pocket 




NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1898 



Copyright^ 1898 
By The Independent 

Copyright, 1898 
By Dodd, Mead and Company 



^ 




John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



1st COPY, 
1898. 



o 



NOTE 

The papers collected in this volume were recently 
prepared by their authors at the request of The Independent y 
in whose pages they first appeared, together with the map 
which accompanies them. They are reprinted in the 
belief that they have a unique value at the present time 
in giving a lucid and authentic statement of facts which 
are of the very greatest contemporaneous interest, but 
which have hitherto been practically inaccessible to the 
general reader. 



Contents. 



Introduction 

Africa in the Twentieth Century 
The Partition of Africa . . . 
The British Empire in Africa . 
The German Empire in Africa . 
The French Empire in Africa . 
The Independent Kongo State . 
England, The Sudan, and France 
The Future of Nigeria . . . 
The Kingdom of Uganda . . . 
Abyssinia and its People . . . 
The Republic of Liberia — its Future 
The Commerce, Railways, and Tele- 
graphs OF Africa 

The Map of Africa 



PAGE 
V 

3 

25 

49 

83 

105 

127 

147 
167 

187 

201 
219 

229 
255 



Introduction. 



"PX Africa semper aliquid novi. So wrote the 
"^^ epigrammatic Roman nearly twenty cen- 
turies ago, and each one of these centuries has 
brought out into still clearer relief the essential 
truth of his terse saying. Africa, indeed, has 
always been the Dark Continent from which in 
every age have come the mysterious and the 
unexpected. Superficially, to be sure, it is 
chiefly as a continent of marvels and mysteries 
that it has been popularly thought of until 
within the memory of the present generation. 
In the earliest recorded times and, for that mat- 
ter, in our own century, its geographical prob- 
lems have been those which the mention of its 
name most readily suggested. Circumnavigated 
by the Phoenicians before the time of Herodo- 
tus, whose record of this fact was for a long 
while discredited; believed for many an age 
to curve toward the East until it united with 
Farther India and made of the Indian Ocean an 
inland sea ; containing in its inaccessible depths 
the source of one of the mightiest rivers of the 
earth, whose origin was surrounded by a mist 



vi Introduction. 

of legend and romance — the wonder-makers 
have from time immemorial been active in the 
invention and transmission of marvellous stories 
regarding this strange continent. Its interior, 
which for many centuries no white man ever 
penetrated, was peopled with strange creatures 
of the unfettered imagination, — with anthro- 
pophagi and dwarfs and giants. Mysterious 
cities were believed to exist upon the rivers 
that lay beyond the Desert. The limitless tropi- 
cal forests were fancifully held to teem with 
dragons and mythical monsters. All travel- 
lers, from Herodotus to Mungo Park, brought 
back additions to the existing stock of curious 
stories to excite the wonder of their contem- 
poraries. 

It is not, however, as a wonderland that 
Africa deserves the very great attention which 
it receives from the minds of men to-day ; nor, 
in fact, has this been wholly true even in the 
historic past. Something more than a pretext 
for myth-making it has always been ; for, just 
as the hot breath of its Desert blowing over the 
Mediterranean sensibly affects the climate of the 
neighbouring continent, so, to a great extent, 
has Africa exercised upon Europe an enduring 
influence of another sort, which has varied in de- 
gree from age to age, but which has never ceased 



Introduction. vii 

to have a very real existence. From the time 
when Egypt under its native rulers developed 
an extraordinary civilisation of its own, — a civ- 
ilisation that knew the arts and sciences, and 
that had a literature and a philosophy which in 
many subtle ways found a reflection and a per- 
petuation in the recorded thought of Greece, — 
there has never been an age in which in some 
way the influence of Africa has not been felt in 
either the political or the intellectual Hfe of 
Europe. In the Alexandrian Age, Africa was 
the home of the highest culture, whose scholars 
laid the foundation of scientific research and 
literary criticism. In the Roman era, it con- 
tained the wealthiest provinces of the Empire. 
It produced in literature men of high talent, like 
Fronto and Apuleius, who left a lasting mark 
upon the history of Roman letters; while the 
Latinity of the second century is found to be 
sensibly modified by the example of the great 
Africans who moulded it and used it to their 
needs. In the early days of Christianity, Ter- 
tullian, the fiery fanatic, and Augustine, whose 
noble intellect and saintly life are among the 
most precious heritages of the Church to-day, 
are but two of the African Fathers whose names 
are cherished by all Christendom. In the an- 
nals of the Later Empire, men of African birth 



viii Introduction. 

play so important a part in the political life of 
Rome that a distinguished scholar has said that 
the whole history of the Roman State at last 
resolves itself into the history of a conflict for 
supremacy between the African and the German 
claimants of imperial power. 

It is, however, in our own century that the 
direct political importance of Africa has re- 
ceived through circumstances a very general 
recognition, — a recognition that has come to 
the statesmen of the Old World with a startling 
suddenness. The colonisation of the continent 
by Europeans began two centuries ago, when 
the English established themselves at the Cape 
and on the Western Coast; but as this was 
before the days of steam, and before the vari- 
ous Powers of Europe had seriously considered 
a systematic colonial policy, the settlement at 
the Cape assumed no very real importance, any 
more than did the fact that men of Dutch de- 
scent had occupied the territory on the Orange 
River, or than did the existence of the petty 
trading-stations which Portugal established. In 
the latter half of the present century, however, 
Europe has awakened to a knowledge of some 
very obvious facts. The first of these is the 
necessity of finding some outlet for its own ex- 
cessive population, and, in the second place, the 



Introduction. ix 

need of new markets for European trade. A 
recognition of these facts has greatly enlarged 
the scope and modified the nature of continen- 
tal policy. A desire for colonies has come 
upon the rulers of the greatest nations. Russia 
long ago found a natural outlet for expansion in 
those vast Asiatic territories adjacent to her own 
domain ; but France and Germany were forced 
to look elsewhere. The greatest islands of the 
South Pacific had already been secured by Eng- 
land ; the American Republic haughtily barred 
out from the Western Hemisphere all European 
colonists who sought to carry to new homes 
their old allegiances. There remained, there- 
fore, only Africa still unpossessed, essentially 
unprotected, and presenting possibilities such 
as might tempt alike the military and the naval 
strategist, and attract the notice of the resource- 
ful trader. Great tracts of country, teeming with 
undeveloped riches, lay unclaimed. There were 
millions of acres of fertile land watered by noble 
rivers; there were tropical forests that gave 
promise of untold wealth in the shape of exotic 
woods and spices ; there were also vast regions 
still unexplored, but described by rumour as 
rich in gold and silver and precious stones. 

Upon the soil of Africa, therefore, in the past 
fifty years there have been unfurled the flags of 



X Introduction. 

many nations, until now there is very little of its 
territory that remains unoccupied or unclaimed 
by European States. France gained her earli- 
est foothold on African soil in Senegal in the 
seventeenth century, "but she won a more valu- 
able possession in Algeria soon after 1830, when 
she began the suppression of Algerine piracy, 
and ended with the conquest of the entire 
country, following up this acquisition later with 
her protectorate over Tunis, her annexation of 
Madagascar, and the extension of her sphere 
of influence over Central Africa through the 
French Sudan and the French Kongo ; so that, 
roughly speaking, she now claims supreme 
control of the territory extending from Algeria 
to the head waters of the Niger, having seized 
in 1893 the so-called holy city of Timbuktu, 
the great trade-mart for the interior, and ulti- 
mately to be united with Algiers or Biserta by 
a railway nearly two thousand miles in length. 
The German occupation of Africa is much more 
recent, since it dates only from 1883, when the 
imperial flag was raised on the West Coast, and 
almost simultaneously in East Africa, in Togo- 
land, and the Cameroons, leaving a certain un- 
defined sphere of influence south of the Portu- 
guese Angola. The next year, 1884, saw the 
Italian flag hoisted upon African soil where 



Introduction. xi 

Italy has lately lost so much and gained so 
little in attempting to maintain herself upon the 
strip of sea-coast called Eritrea, and to acquire 
a sphere of influence at the expense of Abys- 
sinia. The interesting experiment, called the 
Kongo Free State, was begun in 1885, when its 
existence under the sovereignty of the King of 
the Belgians was recognised by the Congress 
of Berlin. Portugal, whose claims were once 
so great as to include an immense tract extend- 
ing across the entire continent, has been re- 
stricted to the possession of two or three small 
strips of territory that are still not very accu- 
rately defined. 

The seizure and the gradual occupation of 
these portions of Africa have, as already stated, 
been fraught with momentous consequences to 
the poHtical conditions of Europe, inasmuch as 
new interests have thus been created whose con- 
flict has been a source of contention and of 
endless friction among the colonising States. 
When the so-called territorial " scramble " 
began, the balance of European power had 
been very carefully adjusted and was holding 
the opposing forces in a very delicate equilib- 
rium. The Triple Alliance between Germany, 
Austria, and Italy had been ofl'set by the less 
formal, though in many respects no less real, 



xii Introduction. 

entente existing between France and Russia; 
while England, uncommitted to either combi- 
nation, and thus left free to cast her enormous 
power into either scale, enjoyed remarkable 
advantages from the standpoint of diplomacy. 
The colonisation of Africa, however, has already 
materially changed the conditions that existed 
so lately as five years ago. As soon as other 
nations began to push their way into the Afri- 
can continent, and to attempt the deHmitation 
and definition of their new possessions, they 
found themselves at many points brought into 
a direct and sometimes an almost irreconcilable 
conflict with each other. Their hinterlands 
and spheres of influence often overlapped ; and 
the difficulties of the situation were frequently 
enhanced by the duplicity of the native chiefs, 
who made treaties with one or the other of 
the different rivals, pledging to each and all, 
with utter irresponsibility, the very same con- 
cessions. There were also conflicting claims of 
discovery and of actual occupancy to be ad- 
justed ; and as the territories in question were 
often so little known as to be incapable of exact 
definition, another element of confusion super- 
vened. But in this clash of interests it has 
been England which in a political sense has 
suffered most. Her earlier exploration and 



Introduction. xiii 

actual possession of territory made her the one 
power whose presence oftenest blocked the way 
of the later colonisers, so that at the present 
time there has been roused against her the bit- 
ter jealousy not only of France, her traditional 
enemy, but of Germany, her traditional ally as 
well ; while again and again her bold explorers 
have crossed the tracks of the Portuguese, and 
have at times been on the verge of actual mili- 
tary conflict. Thus, to-day, the political results 
of the scramble for African territory are very 
striking. In the first place, Italy, by under- 
taking in Abyssinia a task beyond her power 
to perform, has demonstrated her military weak- 
ness and administrative incapacity, so that she 
has ceased to be an actively effective member 
of the Triple Alliance. In the second place, 
England no longer stands aloof and unembar- 
rassed in her colonial ambitions, but is con- 
fronted by the opposition of two of the greatest 
Powers of the continent, whose enmity to each 
other has been appreciably softened by the 
acrimony which animates them both in the 
presence of their great Anglo-Saxon rival. 

It is this phase of the colonisation of Africa 
which possesses for most of us the greatest in- 
terest and importance ; for again and again it 
has seemed to involve the possibilities of ac- 



xiv Introduction. 

tual warfare, and it certainly contains within 
itself innumerable elements of extreme danger. 
It is, in fact, the critical position into which 
England has been brought through her colonial 
policy in Africa and Asia that has made her 
turn during the past few months to the Ameri- 
can Republic as a possible ally against a con- 
tinental combination, and that induced her to 
give not only moral but active diplomatic as- 
sistance to this country during the progress of 
its war with Spain. It would be a curious out- 
come of the entrance of Europe into Africa, if 
the partition of African territory should indi- 
rectly bring about a federation for defensive pur- 
poses of the entire English-speaking race. 

During the past ten years, the periodicals of 
all countries have teemed with description and 
argument as to the partition and the future of 
Africa. The press has recorded from week to 
week the progress of discovery and colonisa- 
tion, and it has brought to the minds of every 
one the acuteness of the rivalry which exists 
between the claimants for colonial supremacy. 
Amid all the mass of geographical statistics, 
and in the maze of controversy that has been 
woven about the aims and motives of the differ- 
ent Powers, it has been almost impossible for 
even the most intelligent person to gain a defi- 



Introduction. xv 

nite understanding of the existing facts. The 
remoteness of the scene and the paucity of 
authentic information have been utterly bewil- 
dering. All that most of us have known is sim- 
ply the broad fact already stated, that the greater 
Powers of Europe are now confronting one 
another in a contest for empire in a continent 
that is still but half explored. It was a happy 
thought, therefore, which led to the preparation 
of the papers reprinted in this volume. Taken 
together they constitute a brief, authoritative, 
and lucid statement of the African situation as 
it is to-day. They describe with perfect clear- 
ness the possessions actually held by each of 
the rival Powers; they define and explain the 
claims which have brought these Powers into 
opposition; and they give an interesting fore- 
cast, from the point of view of each nation, of 
the manner in which the complicated problem 
is likely to be solved. The writer of each paper 
is a specialist whose knowledge is a first-hand 
knowledge, and who has had access to all the 
sources of official information that exist; and 
the fact that he shows a certain half-unconscious 
national bias in his statements, merely gives ad- 
ditional interest to what he has to say. No vol- 
ume that has yet appeared has thrown such light 
upon a subject which in all its phases appeals 



xvi Introduction. 

with exceptional force to the reflective mind; 
for whether one regards it from a geographi- 
cal standpoint, or from the side of contempora- 
neous political history, or as marking an epoch 
in the history of civilisation, the whole theme is 
fraught with the most striking possibilities. 

To many minds the most fascinating feature 
of this African complication is to be found in 
the attitude of England standing face to face 
with so many powerful rivals, and fronting all of 
them with the dauntless serenity of the Anglo- 
Saxon, holding in a grip of iron all that she has 
won, and awaiting with calm confidence the out- 
come of the future. In the great game of 
colonial diplomacy she has never lost a point. 
Planting herself firmly in Egypt, where she won 
an irresistible advantage in 1882 through the 
momentary vacillation of the French; trans- 
forming that country from a miserable tax- 
burdened nest of thieves and cowards into a 
prosperous and self-respecting State, whose 
sons she has taught to dare as well as to en- 
dure ; pushing her outposts farther and farther 
south, so that her soldiers may at length clasp 
hands with the hardy pioneers of the Cape, who 
with equal boldness and persistency are forging 
toward the North; outwitting her French and 
Russian rivals in Abyssinia, and in the West as 



Introduction. xvii 

well, — no thoughtful person can for a moment 
doubt that it is she at last who will be the 
arbiter of Africa. She alone, indeed, has the 
instinctive genius for colonisation, for her sons 
alone are unfettered by the oppressive and 
brutal militarism which blights the colonies of 
Germany, and by the timid inefficiency which 
makes the Frenchman in a foreign land so help- 
less and so ill at ease. No one can refuse to 
believe that she will repeat in Africa the history 
that she has made in North America and in 
Australasia; that in the end it is Anglo-Saxon 
civilisation which will give to the Dark Conti- 
nent the light of free institutions, of justice, and 
of law; and that England will once more reap 
the rich rewards which in the past she has 
always won through the inestimable service 
that she has rendered to the cause that is the 
cause of all humanity. 



HARRY THURSTON PECK. 



Columbia University, 
August the firsty 1898. 



AFRICA IN THE TWENTIETH 
CENTURY. 



AFRICA IN THE TWENTIETH 
CENTURY. 

BY HENRY M. STANLEY, M.P. 

TO draw the horoscope of Africa, and 
foretell in what condition she will 
be in 1998, is a rash and risky under- 
taking; and it is with considerable mis- 
giving that I have ventured to consent to 
giving you my opinion upon the subject. 
If I mass them under the term " proba- 
bilities " there will be no harm done, while 
I hope they will be of interest to some of 
your readers. 

In 1798 the whole body of the African 
continent north of the limited Cape 
Colony to the Mediterranean countries 
was absolutely unknown except a thin 
coast fringe. Bruce had been to the head 
of the Blue Nile, and Mungo Park had 
visited Timbuktu ; and their lines of travel 
with Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, 
Egypt, Abyssinia, and Senegal comprised 



4 Africa in the 

our knowledge of inner Africa. Despite 
numerous maps that had been published 
between the fifteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies the best geographers knew little 
more of the continent than the contem- 
poraries of Ptolemy, 1 50 a. d. 

What is known of Africa in 1898 is 
mainly due to the explorations which com- 
menced with Livingstone's journey to the 
Zambezi in 1854-57. By August, 1884, 
the basins of the Nile, Kongo, Niger, Zam- 
bezi, and Limpopo, together with all the 
great lakes, were fairly well known ; and 
since then exploration has been on such a 
scale that there is now but little left to 
discover. 

In December, 1884, commenced the 
Berlin Conference, and soon after came 
the scramble for the bulky continent. We 
find Africa partitioned to-day as follows : 
France has secured 3,000,000 square miles, 
Germany 884,000 square miles, Great 
Britain 2,190,000 square miles, Italy 
549,000 square miles, Portugal 825,000 
square miles, Kongo Free State 905,000 
square miles, the Boer Republics 178,000 



Twentieth Century. 5 

square miles, which, with 2,435,000 square 
miles occupied by Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, 
and Liberia, make about 11,000,000 square 
miles out of the entire 11,500,000 square 
miles said to be the superficial area of 
Africa. 

It is from the above delimitations that 
we have to forecast the probable condition 
of Africa a hundred years hence. 

Egypt's future depends largely upon the 
state she will be in when England retires 
from the care and control of her. For 
sixteen years England has been redeeming 
her from the anarchy she fell into through 
the wastefulness of Ismail the Khedive, 
the revolt of Arabi, and the rebellion of 
the Sudan. During this period her finances 
have been restored and her army reorgan- 
ised. The revenue has been steadily aug- 
menting, her trade increased, the instituted 
reforms have tended to the happiness of 
her people ; and now, assured of pros- 
perity, she is advancing to regain her lost 
Sudanese provinces. Last year the Egyp- 
tian troops were at Berber ; this year they 
will be at Khartum and Omdurman, and 



6 Africa in the 

probably at the Bahr Ghazal. A couple 
of years hence Kordofan and Darfur will 
have been occupied. Egypt must then 
devote several years — under British 
supervision — to the work of consolida- 
tion and restoration of these countries, 
which should occupy at least fifteen years 
more. 

Despite assertions to the contrary, I do 
not think France will attempt forcibly to 
interfere with the British occupation until 
it is clear to all the world that Egypt is 
in a condition to conduct her own affairs. 
But notwithstanding the fact that the 
mutual action of England and Egypt may 
be comparatively smooth for fifteen or 
twenty years to come, the time must 
arrive when the new Egypt will be vehe- 
ment in her desire to terminate the tute- 
lage to which she will have submitted for 
nearly forty years. Then the good sense 
of England will perceive it necessary to 
withdraw the British troops. For the in- 
estimable services she will have performed, 
England will doubtless demand the privi- 
leges of a protector, as security against 



Twentieth Century. 7 

relapse and the attempts of any foreign 
Power to succeed her. 

For a few years after the departure of 
the British forces, the policy of the Egyp- 
tians will be cautious, and to proceed on 
the safe lines to which they will have been 
accustomed. Agriculture along the Upper 
Nile will be encouraged, Meroe will be 
developed, the Sudan will be studded with 
fortified stations, and these will be con- 
nected by railways. If they continue this 
policy, enduring prosperity will be certain ; 
but if a khedive of self-will seeks to restore 
the old order of things, override his coun- 
cillors, veto legislative enactments, neglect 
the schools, overtax his people, then, of 
course, disaster and ruin must follow, and 
Egypt will once more need the foreigner 
to save her. I do not think it possible 
myself ; on the contrary, the lessons of 
forty years will not be forgotten, and the 
end of the next century will find the 
Egyptian dominions thickly populated, 
independent of Turkey, protected by a 
powerful native army and ranking among 
the second-class Powers. 



8 Africa in the 

With regard to Abyssinia, I do not think 
the country will be much more advanced 
a hundred years hence than it is to-day, 
though a century is a long time to look 
forward to. A nation of mountaineers, so 
jealous of its independence and hostile to 
foreigners, cannot evolve out of itself the 
elements of progress in so short a period. 
The Abyssinians may possess breech- 
loaders, and have a better and larger 
army; but these in a barbarous nation 
rather tend to confirm its barbarism. 
They will be too powerful to be subdued, 
too dreaded for the attempt of a civiliser, 
too isolated to catch the spirit of civilisa- 
tion, too poor to excite cupidity ; in brief, 
the game of civilising Abyssinia is not 
worth the cost of the effort. More than 
once the Abyssinians will measure their 
strength against the Egyptians, and against 
the British to the south ; but though they 
may meet with a temporary success, their 
defeat is assured in all the lowlands round 
about. 

Italy claims African territory to the 
south of Abyssinia much too spacious for 



Twentieth Century, 9 

her revenue. Becoming infected with the 
craze for African territory and puffed up 
with vanity, she attempted to swallow more 
than she could digest. The result was 
satiety, and disgorgement. Her Somali 
and Galla lands, 280,000 square miles, are 
of no value to her, but are coveted by both 
France and Abyssinia. It is obvious to 
me that they will be a cause of trouble, 
expense, and humiliation to her yet. The 
sentiment against absentees is as strong 
with rival Powers as with private tenants. 
Italy, not daring the cost of proper occu- 
pation, must decide quickly what alterna- 
tive she will adopt in regard to them. 
This section, then, being in a state of 
suspense, there is no certain basis for a 
forecast of the future. A few years hence 
it will be safer to pronounce it. 

British East Africa has a fair future. 
In 1875 a traveller sounded the praises of 
Uganda, and suggested that it required 
missionaries. Two years later mission- 
aries landed in the country, after a voyage 
across Lake Victoria. To-day there are 
321 churches and over 100,000 converts 



lo Africa in the 

in it. Parliament has voted ;^3,ooo,ooo 
toward the railway which is to connect 
Uganda with the sea; 150 miles of it is 
now in running order. The terminus is 
to be on the shore of the lake, which will 
soon be floating many steam vessels. It 
will then be necessary to extend the rail- 
ways, so as to make the frontiers of this 
region accessible and secure against dis- 
turbance. Lake Rudolf is one objective 
point which must be reached ; Gondo- 
koro on the White Nile is another; Lakes 
Albert Edward and Albert are others. By 
the time these necessary works are con- 
cluded, white communities will have estab- 
lished themselves along the trunk railway, 
the Kenia, Elgon, and Massowa mountains 
will possess their sanatoria and hotels, and 
long before the half of the century has 
gone British East Africa will have become 
one of the most prosperous African colo- 
nies, somewhat similar to what Natal is at 
present. 

Under German Africa, I include East 
Africa, Damara, and Namaqua lands, and 
the Kamerun. Intellectually the native 



Twentieth Century. 1 1 

races of these countries are inferior to 
those of British East Africa, and the trend 
of German policy toward them does not 
promise great success. As against the 
constitutionalism of the British methods, 
it is a decided militarism that is in favour 
with the Germans ; and from such I gather 
that, successful as it may seem by steady 
persistence and force, only a kind of pro- 
gress like that found in Boer States can 
follow. Military control permits no radi- 
cal change among natives, and does not 
conduce to moral and intellectual improve- 
ment. Being too rigid and supercilious 
to stoop to associate with inferiors, it is 
satisfied with the outward form of civilisa- 
tion. The tribes protected from mutual 
slaughter will naturally multiply, and sup- 
ply labour for mines, public works, mer- 
cantile establishments, and agricultural 
estates ; but, as there is no sign of ele- 
vating effort in view, the great mass of 
natives will not have profited morally by 
German civilisation. The German pos- 
session a century hence will be in much 
the same condition as the Gold Coast is 



12 Africa in the 

to-day; that is, materially improved, but 
in heart and understanding only a degree 
above barbarism. 

Portuguese East Africa, north of the 
Zambezi, has no remarkable future in 
prospect. Its climate and situation are 
against it. A certain improvement in 
government may be expected from pick- 
ings derived from trade passing by its 
borders to British Nyassaland. That part 
of the Portuguese possessions south of the 
Zambezi River is exposed to the demands 
of Rhodesia and the Transvaal ; but as 
flexibility will be more advantageous than 
obduracy, and neither Boer nor British 
colonists will greatly care for malarious 
lowlands, the Portuguese will avert the 
danger by the freest access to the sea-posts 
of Beira and Louren9o Marquez, and thus 
render friction unlikely. 

Neither Nyassaland nor northern Char- 
terland, though in other ways prosperous 
enough, can present such results as British 
East Africa at the end of the next cen- 
tury, unless some sure curative of malarial 
fever is discovered. The tribes are a mere 



Twentieth Century, 13 

agglomeration of fragments of tribes, and 
though of the sturdier type, they are not 
intellectual. Before many years, educa- 
tion, which is freely bestowed, must neces- 
sarily make a great change in them. The 
connection of Lake Nyassa with the Cape 
must increase trade to a large extent, and 
otherwise be of material benefit. The ris- 
ing importance of the Tanganyika region 
by the prosperity of the regions east and 
west of it, must be of great advantage to 
the revenue of Nyassaland ; coffee, cotton, 
sugar, tea, etc., may be largely exported, 
and altogether the general progress may 
be most marked ; still the area of Nyassa- 
land is but limited, and northern Charter- 
land is as yet in a primitive state, far in 
the interior, with nothing exceptionally 
promising. Should Rhodesia seek an 
outlet to the Atlantic at Mossamedes 
then Charterland's prospects would be 
brighter. 

In treating of South Africa I must in- 
clude Cape Colony, Natal, Bechuanaland, 
the South African Republic, and the 
Orange Free State, because want of space 



14 Africa in the 



forbids detail and compels brevity. The 
most marked advance in Africa during the 
next century will be in this region, because 
it is suitable to the constitution of the 
European, and for 250 years he has proved 
himself adapted to it, and has already 
founded several flourishing States within 
it. Even the youngest State is possessed 
of all the advantages necessary to the 
fullest expansion ; railways, telegraphs, 
and steam lines bring it in direct contact 
with the centre of the civilised world. 
Nevertheless, there is a peculiar condition 
of things in South Africa, found in no 
other part of the continent, which, as we 
look forward along the coming century, 
satisfy us that there must be a troublous 
future in store for these colonies and States. 
The worst danger, I think, to be appre- 
hended is from the stubborn antagonism 
which exists between two such determined 
races as the British and the Dutch. Years 
do not appear to modify, but rather to 
intensify the incompatibility. Already 
they have lived side by side under one 
flag for over ninety years, but the feeling 



Twentieth Century. 15 

has been more hostile of late years. The 
South African Bond (Boer) and the South 
African League (British) represent the 
variance of feeling existing. Though the 
Boers are in the majority at present, time 
appears to be in favour of the ultimate pre- 
dominance of the British. During the 
last six years the steam lines took 66,coo 
people to South Africa, and Johannesburg, 
Kimberley, and Rhodesia must account for 
most of these. The next ten years at this 
rate will place the British as numerically 
equal to the Boers, and in twenty years 
they wdll exceed the Boers, and by that 
time the supremacy question will have 
been definitely settled. 

The Imperial supremacy is an altogether 
different thing, and not worth considering. 
What we want to know is, if the suprem- 
acy is of such a character as to assure 
us of the largest possible civil and relig- 
ious liberty to the people of South Africa. 
If the British are in the ascendant, the 
principles w^hich triumphed in the United 
States, Canada, and the Australias wall 
triumph here also ; but if tlie Dutch gain 



1 6 Africa in the 

the ascendency, the outlook is not so 
bright. In my opinion the latter can 
scarcely be the case, though at present 
Boer ideas and views preponderate. If a 
happy solution of the problem be arrived 
at, South Africa in 1998 must have 
a population of European descent ap- 
proaching 8,000,000 and a coloured popu- 
lation of 16,000,000. Sectional revolts of 
blacks against whites will doubtless happen, 
but any combination of the negroes of the 
various States is impossible. Long before 
the end of the century the connection of 
South Africa with Great Britain will be 
very slight, unless common interests will 
have invented some form of nexus where- 
by Britain and her colonies may have the 
utmost freedom of action in domestic 
matters, while yet restrained from pursu- 
ing opposing politics in foreign affairs. 

Portuguese Angola, which comes next, 
possesses such advantages from its posi- 
tion and natural resources, as might, with 
energetic administration, make it an opu- 
lent colony. Its climate on the whole is 
very tolerable for the tropics ; it contains 



Twentieth Century. 17 

spacious highlands, the soil of which is 
well adapted for cereals and grazing ; in 
its valleys may be grown coffee, tea, cotton, 
sugar-cane, etc. It is rich in copper and 
iron. A judicious expenditure on railways 
would open out a rich interior, and enable 
it to share to a great extent in the pros- 
perity of its neighbours. It possesses 
several good seaports which some day 
will attract the attention of North Char- 
terland and Rhodesia. Mossamedes is 
but a thousand miles away from the Vic- 
toria Falls and less than 1,300 from Bulu- 
wayo, which fact is sufficiently suggestive 
of what the next century may see. 

The existence of the Kongo Free State 
depends upon whether Belgium will suc- 
ceed King Leopold in 1900. Hitherto 
she has been strongly disinclined to the 
idea. However, the completion of the 
Kongo Railway, which gives easy access 
to the Upper Kongo basin, may convert 
her to a better appreciation of the noble 
State the King has created. The shares 
are at present worth double their face 
value, the trade of the State is annually 



1 8 Africa in the 

increasing, while the revenue may be made 
to keep pace with the expenditure at any 
time. The mortality due to climate shows 
a steady reduction, and by means of the 
railway, which will be open next June to 
regular traffic, and better accommodation 
on the river steamers, it will be still further 
reduced. In 1879 the ocean voyage to 
the Kongo occupied forty-five days ; in 
1898 the voyage takes twenty-two days; 
it will shortly pay to run steamers which 
will do the voyage in half the time. In 
thirteen years the number of Europeans 
on the Kongo has risen from a few score 
to 1,500; ten years hence, by the accel- 
erated means of transport, I estimate there 
will be 5,000, and by 1998 there probably 
will be 250,000 Europeans within the 
State, and railways to the Tanganyika, 
the Nile, and Katanga. To-day the native 
population is estimated at 16,000,000, 
which a century hence will no doubt have 
increased to 40,000,000. But how easy 
it were to efface this fair prospect, by im- 
agining the destiny of the State consigned 
to other hands than that of Belgium } 



Twentieth Century. 19 

French Africa, which includes the 
Gabun, French Kongo, Dahomey, Sene- 
gal, Algiers, Tunis, the Sahara, and 
Nigeria, is too vast to be here treated of 
otherwise than under one head. Twice 
has France in the past possessed mag- 
nificent colonies ; but during the wars of 
the Louises and Napoleon she has had 
the misfortune to lose them nearly all. 
She has acquired others since, as great 
and as valuable as those she lost; but 
Gallic nature remains the same as when 
Polybius declared the Gauls to be " swayed 
by impulse rather than by sober calcula- 
tion." As in the far past the Gauls yielded 
to passion, were so needlessly provocative 
and prone to rash enterprises, it is to be 
feared that in the future they w^ill not 
sufficiently deliberate upon the choice of 
evils, and so again endanger their vast 
possessions. Algiers, Tunis, and Senegal 
are, however, so well established that it 
is doubtful whether a calamitous war 
would interrupt their progress. But for 
the rest, unless a more prudent policy be 
adopted toward well-meaning nations, it 



20 Africa in the 

is impossible to say what another century 
may bring forth. Like Italy, France has 
been forward in annexation; and her 
revenue is not equal to nourishing an 
Asian and an African empire of such 
prodigious extent and a huge island like 
Madagascar at one and the same time. 
One or the other must needs starve or all 
must suffer through the want of nutrition 
for development. 

The British West African colonies dur- 
ing the coming century are destined to 
be much more progressive than in the 
past. Inclusive of Nigeria, their super- 
ficial area extends over 480,000 square 
miles. Hitherto they have been neglected 
and remained comparatively undeveloped ; 
but owing to French aggressiveness, which 
threatened to limit them to the coast-line, 
they have of late received more attention, 
and railways have been started both at 
Lagos and Sierra Leone toward the in- 
terior. Cape Coast Castle is also to be 
connected with Kumassi. These lines 
will enable our merchants, so long con- 
fined to the coast, to enter into commer- 



Twentieth Century. 21 

cial relations with the more populous 
interior. To-day the revenue of these 
colonies amounts to ;^500,ooo, while their 
trade with that of Nigeria is valued at 
;^6,ooo,ooo. Given a hundred years more, 
the trade will have increased to ^25,000,000, 
while there will be a corresponding im- 
provement in the social condition of the 
natives of these regions. 

There remains only the Moroccan 
Empire to consider. Owing to the jeal- 
ousies of the Powers, annexationists have 
been shy of Morocco. It must be the 
policy of Great Britain to uphold the 
native ruler as long as possible, were it 
only for the reason that if a foreign Power 
occupies Morocco, Gibraltar will have been 
flanked. It is certain that a course of 
British administration, similar to that 
which is regenerating Egypt, would have 
a decidedly beneficial effect on Morocco, 
and start it on a prosperous course. But 
this would not be done without the 
consent of Europe. Therefore, Morocco 
must be left to natural evolution which, 
of course, requires centuries to produce 



22 Twentieth Century. 

substantial civilisation. It is possible that 
some foreign Power will take advantage 
of some serious European entanglement 
to bring the Moroccan question to a sud- 
den issue ; but it will not be such an easy 
task as the seizure of Tunis, nor so quietly 
acquiesced in. 

I have thus gone round Africa in a 
perfunctory way, I fear ; still, if the reader 
will take the map of the continent in hand 
and study the limits I have given in each 
paragraph he will find the sum total of 
the changes, which the next century must 
see, to be very large. The Cape to Cairo 
Railway, which some appear to think as 
improbable, will be an accomplished fact 
before 1925, I believe. There is nothing 
very difficult about it, for even to-day 
;^ 1 0,000,000 would rail the entire distance 
from Buluwayo to Lado on the White 
Nile ; and with steam navigation on Lakes 
Nyassa, Tanganyika, Albert Edward, and 
Albert, and on the White Nile, communi- 
cation would be established between Cape 
Town and Alexandria. 



THE PARTITION OF AFRICA. 



THE PARTITION OF AFRICA. 

BY J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., 
Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. 

FOURTEEN years ago I wrote a 
paper entitled " The Scramble for 
Africa." In the beginning of 1884 that 
scramble had just begun. Up to that 
time England and France were the two 
great European Powers in Africa; but 
they pursued their annexations leisurely. 
Portugal, though she possessed some 
800,000 square miles in East and West 
Africa, was hardly taken into account, and 
in the scramble was dealt with by the 
other Powers as if she were a native State. 
The King of the Belgians was pushing 
his way on the Kongo rather as the head 
of a private company than as the sovereign 
of a State ; France was fighting her way 
toward the Upper Niger, while the British 
Niger Company was establishing its foot- 
ing on the lower river. Even British 



26 The Partition 

South Africa did not, fourteen years ago, 
extend much beyond the Orange River; 
and over the whole of Central Africa, 
i, e., Africa between the tropics, effective 
European possession was confined to a 
few patches along the coast. Suddenly 
Germany intervened, and precipitated the 
leisurely game of annexation into a scram- 
ble. In 1883 the German flag was raised 
by a private trader on the coast of Nama- 
qualand, in Southwest Africa. In 1884 the 
scramble began in earnest; and by 1885 
the *' Spheres " of the three great Euro- 
pean Powers chiefly interested — England, 
France, and Germany — may be said to 
have been roughly blocked out over the--, 
whole continent. Meantime, in 1884-85^- 
the Berlin Congress had met and laid 
down the rules for the game, at the same 
time recognising the Kongo Free State 
under the sovereignty of the Belgians. 
During the years that have elapsed since 
then there have been occasional crises 
among the Powers concerned when their 
African frontiers approached each other; 
but till now the difficulty has been got 



of Africa» 27 

over by international agreements. There 
was so much elbow-room on the great 
neglected continent that mutually satis- 
factory arrangements were not difficult. 
But now that the continent has been prac- 
tically partitioned, and the various spheres 
delimited, the Powers have been taking 
stock of the extent and value of their 
possessions, and one, at least, is not satis- 
fied. Let us briefly inquire what the 
result has been. 

British South Africa now extends from 
Cape Town to Lake Tanganyika, a dis- 
tance of 1,800 miles. The whole south 
coast is British. On the west the sphere 
is bordered by German Southwest Africa, 
Portuguese Guinea, and the Kongo Free 
State ; on the east by Portuguese and 
German East Africa, while the two Boer 
Republics are shut into the British spheres 
as inclosures. It may be said that the 
only disputed boundary in this part of 
Africa is between Great Britain and 
Portugal, the Barotse country to the west 
of the Zambezi being claimed by both ; 
the difference will probably be settled in 



28 The Partition 

favour of the stronger Power. This im- 
mense British area, covering nearly a 
million of square miles, is at various stages 
of incorporation with the Empire, from the 
self-administrating colony to the "Sphere 
of Influence " ; Cape Colony and Natal 
belong to the former categories. Beyond 
Cape Colony we have the Bechuanaland 
Protectorate, but much the greater share 
belongs to the British South African 
Company, whose territories extend to the 
heart of the continent. On the west and 
south of Lake Nyassa we have the British 
Central Africa Protectorate, which is under 
direct imperial administration and is inde- 
pendent of the company. A traveller 
from the Cape to Lake Tanganyika might 
sail up the lake and from the north end, 
after a journey of about 120 miles either 
through the Kongo Free State or through 
German East Africa, find himself again in 
British territory, in the country of which we 
have recently heard so much, — Uganda. 
Here we are in British East Africa, which 
has a coast-line on the Indian Ocean of 
some 400 miles to the south of the Juba 



of Africa. 29 

River, extends westward to the Victoria 
Nyanza, the Albert Nyanza, and the 
Albert Edward Nyanza, and on the other 
side along the Juba, and westward across 
the Nile into Bahr-el-Ghazal and Darfur. 
It includes the islands of Zanzibar and 
Pemba, and embraces an area of some 
800,000 square miles. The limits of Brit- 
ish East Africa have been arranged by 
agreements with Germany and Italy, the 
two contiguous Powers ; but they have 
never been formally recognised by France 
— and thereby hangs a tale to which we 
shall presently refer. This vast territory 
is under the jurisdiction nominally of Her 
Majesty's representative at Zanzibar, but 
it is divided into provinces each with its 
resident and sub-residents, though the 
portion to the north of Uganda on the 
Upper Nile has not yet been finally occu- 
pied. The island of Zanzibar has still 
a Sultan as nominal ruler; but he is a 
mere figure-head. On the northeast, 
British East Africa is bordered by Soma- 
liland and Gallaland, which is nominally 
Italian, except a block on the Gulf of 



30 The Partition 

Aden to the west of Cape Guardafui, 
which is British. It covers 75,000 square 
miles, and it is of great importance as 
commanding the trade of the interior. 

On the opposite side of Africa will be 
found another extensive British sphere 
covering the lower Niger. The total 
area secured by various agreements be- 
tween England, France, and Germany, 
and by treaties with native potentates is 
about 500,000 square miles ; all except a 
portion on the coast, which is a protect- 
orate, being under the jurisdiction of the 
Royal Niger Company. About the east- 
ern boundary there is no dispute ; it 
extends from the south end of Lake Tchad 
in a southwest direction to the coast near 
the Calabar River. On the north, by 
arrangement with France in 1890, the 
British territory is bordered by a line 
drawn from Say on the Niger east to 
Barua on Lake Tchad, but bending north- 
ward so as to include all that belongs to 
Sokoto. It is the western boundary that 
is at present in hot dispute between 
France and England. The English in- 



of Africa. 3 1 

terpretation of the agreement of 1890 is 
that a line drawn south from Say marks 
the western boundary of the British 
sphere ; and this was the French inter- 
pretation when the agreement was made. 
The Niger Company has made treaties 
with native chiefs so as to cover all this 
sphere. For reasons satisfactory to the 
company they have not occupied every 
point in this territory, among others the 
important town of Busa on the Niger. 
The French maintaining, by an erroneous 
interpretation of the Berlin Agreement, 
that effective occupation is necessary, 
have slipped in and occupied Busa and 
other places. The fact is, it is only now, 
when the partition is all but complete, 
that France realises her disadvantage in 
having no direct access to the Lower 
Niger. Great Britain has apparently 
made up her mind on no account to yield 
any part of the west bank of the Lower 
Niger to France, except a small strip to 
the south of Say. France insists on her 
rights as actual occupant. The two 
Powers are, therefore, at a deadlock ; what 



32 The Partition 

the result will be remains to be seen.-^ 
These British Niger territories are the 
most densely peopled part of Africa; they 
are capable of great commercial develop- 
ment; many of the people are far above 
the rank of savages. Lagos, the Gold 
Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, all British, 
have been reduced to patches blocked 
everywhere from the interior by French 
territory, except Lagos, which is really 
part of the great Niger territory and 
which, along with this and the Niger 
Coast Protectorate, will shortly be united 
under one administration under direct 
Imperial control. The total area in Africa 
claimed by Great Britain may be roughly 
estimated at 2,300,000 square miles. 

The territory claimed by France in 
Africa covers something like three mil- 
lion square miles, including Madagascar. 
Algeria and Tunis she holds by right of 
conquest, and her claims there are not 
disputed. From the Mediterranean to 

1 By a compact announced in the Speech from the Throne, 
August I2th, 1898, the deadlock mentioned here has been 
broken. The French have abandoned their claim to Busa, re- 
ceiving in return some minor territorial concessions. The result 
must be viewed as a diplomatic victory for England. — H. T. P. 



of Africa. 33 

the Gulf of Guinea her territory extends 
without interruption. By the Anglo- 
French arrangement of 1890, already 
referred to, the greater part of the Sahara, 
" very light soil," as Lord Salisbury called 
it, is allotted as her sphere. On the 
northwest she is shut off from the coast 
by Morocco and the Spanish block known 
as Rio d'Oro, about 150,000 square miles. 
From a little to the north of Cape Blanco 
round to the British Gold Coast Colony, 
France possesses a long line of coast, 
interrupted by such patches as British 
Gambia, Portuguese Guinea, Liberia, and 
Sierra Leone. The whole of the Niger 
above Say is French, and nearly the whole 
of the country in the great bend of the 
river is claimed by her ; and, as a matter 
of fact, the disputed area is very small. 
It consists of a patch behind the British 
Gold Coast and German Togoland, mainly 
composed of the Kingdom of Mossi. 
Great Britain claims some of the territory 
behind Ashanti, and within the last few 
months France and Germany have come 
to an agreement as to the limits of Togo- 
3 



34 The Partition 

land. The whole region to the west of 
this, included in the basins of the Nis^er 
and the Senegal, are French and all the 
territory embraced in the northern bend 
of the Niger. This is known as the 
French Sudan, with the exception of 
the most westerly portions, Senegambia. 
Like the Niger territories, this region is 
densely populated and capable of great 
commercial development. The French 
Sahara probably covers 1,500,000 square 
miles, and Senegambia and the French 
Sudan close on half a million square miles. 
Further south, on the equator, the 
French Kongo extends from the coast 
along the north side of the Kongo River, 
north to Lake Tchad, and east to the 
water — parting between the Nile and 
the Kongo. These limits, by arrange- 
ments between France, Germany, and the 
Kongo Free State, are beyond dispute. 
They include an area of some 560,000 
square miles ; but France is not satisfied 
with this. She declines to accept the 
eastern boundary, and during the last five 
years has been making strenuous efforts 



of Africa. 35 

to extend her sphere into the Bahr-el- 
Ghazal district, — one of the abandoned 
provinces of the Egyptian Sudan, and 
included in British East Africa, in accord- 
ance with the agreement between Great 
Britain, Germany, and Italy. These agree- 
ments, France declares, are not binding 
upon her ; and at the present moment the 
relations between France and England 
are in a state of tension, because an ex- 
pedition, under Captain Marchand, is 
reported actually to have reached the 
Nile, and established itself at Fashoda, 
while another French expedition from 
Abyssinia has completed, or is endeavour- 
ing to complete the French connection 
between the West and East Coasts. 
Some three years ago it was declared 
in the House of Commons that any at- 
tempt on the part of France to establish 
herself on the Nile would be regarded as 
" an unfriendly act." It is here, then, and 
on the Niger, that the final crisis in the 
partition of Africa has been reached. The 
eagerness of France to find a footing on 
the Upper Nile is intimately associated 



36 The Partition 

with the position of England in Egypt, 
which, as all the world knows, is bitterly 
resented by the French. Egypt is nomin- 
ally under the suzerainty of Turkey, but 
is practically independent, or, rather, under 
the tutelage of England. Under the guid- 
ance of England, an attempt, so far suc- 
cessful, is being made to regain the lost 
provinces of the Egyptian Sudan, so long 
terrorised by the Khalifa. An advance 
has been made to within measurable dis- 
tance of Khartum; if that stronghold 
should be taken, it would mean the defeat 
of the Khalifa. Doubtless no time would 
be lost in establishing an Anglo-Egyptian 
rule in the old provinces, Kordofan, Dar- 
fur, and Bahr-el-Ghazal. If the French 
are found to be actually established in the 
last-named province, and if no compro- 
mise can be come to, then a crisis will 
have been reached which will affect not 
only the partition of Africa, but the peace 
of the world. These Egyptian Sudan 
provinces cover an area of some 800,000 
square miles, while that of Egypt proper, 
from the Desert to the Red Sea, is about 



of Africa. 3 7 

400,000 square miles. To the west of 
Egypt is the Turkish territory of Tripoli 
and Fezzan, to the south of which is a 
portion of the Sahara, at present unan- 
nexed, and, with the exception of the 
Tibesti Highlands, a hopeless desert. 
This unannexed area probably covers 
about 800,000 square miles ; on its south- 
ern border is the semi-civilised Sudan 
State of Wadai, at present independent, 
but which ultimately, no doubt, will be 
claimed by France. 

Just at the mouth of the Red Sea, 
opposite Aden, France has a block of 
territory, Obok, estimated to cover 50,000 
square miles, its only value being that 
it commands Abyssinia. Partly by con- 
quest and partly by international arrange- 
ment, France is in undisputed possession 
of Madagascar, which with neighbouring 
islands covers an area of about 280,000 
square miles. Altogether, then, the ac- 
knowledged claims of France in Africa 
gives her the enormous area of about 
3,300,000 square miles, much of it sand. 

Germany, which may be said to have 



38 The Partition 

begun the scramble, came off with an 
area much less than the other two Powers. 
However, unlike the others, she began 
fifteen years ago with nothing, and now 
has undisputed possession of about a mil- 
lion square miles. In Southwest Africa, 
where she began her acquisitions, her 
possessions — Damaraland and Namaqua- 
land — by arrangement with England, 
cover 322,450 square miles. Except in 
the north, it is doubtful if this half-desert 
country can ever be of much value. Ger- 
many's greatest African territory is in 
East Africa, marching with British East 
Africa in the north and with Portuguese 
East Africa and British Central Africa 
on the south. It includes the southern 
half of the Victoria Nyanza and the east- 
ern shore of Tanganyika. It has about 
400 miles of coast-line. The possession 
is undisputed, based on arrangements 
with England and Portugal, Zanzibar and 
native chiefs in 1885-90. It only remains 
to settle a few details with England as to 
the southern boundary. Attempts with 
varied success have been made to estab- 



of Africa. 39 

lish plantations in the north of the ter- 
ritory; but at present the bulk of the 
country is untouched, and much of it is 
just a stage beyond desert ; it covers 
385,000 square miles. On the opposite 
coast, between French Kongo and the 
British Niger territory, Germany pos- 
sesses an area of over 190,000 square 
miles in the Kamerun, which extends 
eastward into the interior some 400 miles 
and north through Adamawa to Lake 
Tchad. By arrangem^ent with Great Brit- 
ain and France the limits of the German 
concessions are practically settled, and 
the country, which is thickly populated, 
is in a fair state of development. German 
Togoland is a long, narrow strip on the 
Gold Coast. By an agreement with France 
in 1897, its limits as respects French 
Dahomey have been settled, and the colony 
may now cover about 25,000 square miles. 
But to the west of this and to the north 
of Ashanti is a neutral zone as between 
Germany and England, which remains 
to be adjusted. About this there is not 
likely to be much difiRculty ; and it is 



40 The Partition 

not probable that unless through some 
cataclysm or cession by the other Powers 
the German area in Africa will ever 
exceed the million square miles. 

When the scramble began, Portugal 
put in enormous claims for an " empire " 
across the continent between Angola and 
Mozambique. This was made short work 
of by England and the Kongo Free State ; 
and her possessions have been restricted 
to a long strip on the East Coast, with 
a wedge along the Zambezi, and a much 
bigger block on the West Coast between 
the rivers Cunene and Kongo. The 
actual jurisdiction of the Portuguese, 
especially on the east, hardly extends 
beyond the coast. In Portuguese West 
Africa, as has already been pointed out, 
the region to the west of the Upper 
Zambezi is claimed by the British South 
African Company ; meantime a provincial 
agreement exists pending the final settle- 
ment. On the Guinea coast all that 
remains of Portugal's old possessions is 
a small strip of 14,000 square miles south 
of the Gambia ; she also retains the Cape 



of Africa, 41 

Verde Islands and St. Thomas. Alto- 
gether the African possessions of Portugal 
cover only 750,000 square miles. 

The Kongo Free State, which practi- 
cally coincides with the enormous basin 
of the river Kongo, is the creation of 
the Berlin Congress of 1884-85. Its 
boundaries are defined by international 
agreements with the leading Powers con- 
cerned, dating from 1884 to 1894. It 
covers 900,000 square miles, and has a 
population of, probably, 30,000,000 native 
Africans. By a convention with Great 
Britain in 1894, a strip along the w^est of 
the Albert Nyanza and the Upper Nile 
was leased to the King of the Belgians. 
This strip extended much further than it 
at present does; but, under pressure from 
France, the King gave up the northern 
section. The Kongo Free State possesses 
the most magnificent series of waterways 
on the continent. 

There is only one other Power largely 
interested in Africa, though that interest 
has been lately largely diminished. Italy 
could not resist the example of the other 



42 The Partition 

great Powers. She had long had an eye 
on Tripoli, but France virtually warned 
her to keep her hands off that. So long 
ago as 1870 an Italian trading house had 
obtained the cession of a spot of territory 
on Assab Bay, near the mouth of the 
Red Sea, as a coaling station. In 1882 
Italy took active possession of this spot, 
and in 1883 she began to extend her 
territory northward until in 1888 she 
reached Cape Kasar, north of the port of 
Massaua, 650 miles north of Assab. Had 
Italy been content with this strip, and 
used it as a basis of commercial opera- 
tions with Abyssinia, all might have gone 
well. But she was ambitious far beyond 
the limit of her means. She would needs 
conquer Abyssinia. Space prevents us 
entering into details. Suffice it to say 
that, after long-continued operations, Italy 
met with disastrous defeat, and is now 
confined to the limits of her strip on the 
Red Sea, about 88,500 square miles, and 
Abyssinia has asserted its independence. 
But she was not content with Abyssinia. 
By various concessions Italy obtained a 



of Africa. 43 

footing in Somaliland, to the north of the 
river Juba, and claimed an area here of 
335,000 square miles. She has not for- 
mally renounced this, but as a matter of 
fact she must give it up. At present, with 
the aid of the French Prince Henry of 
Orleans and the Russian Colonel Leon* 
tieff, Abyssinia is preparing to sweep the 
whole of Somaliland and Gallaland within 
her grasp ; and it is stated that England 
has even consented to give up more than 
half her territory on the Gulf of Aden. 
At present, then, Italy's effective claim 
is limited to the area of Eritrea, as her 
Red Sea strip is named. 

Besides the block, Rio d'Oro, already 
referred to, on the Sahara coast, Spain 
possesses the Canaries, Tetuan in Mo- 
rocco, Fernando Po, and one or two other 
islands, and a patch on the Guinea coast, 
— altogether about 3,800 square miles. 
Liberia, the negro Republic, is still nomin- 
ally independent, though France has cut 
down her territory to 14,600 square miles. 
Through the jealousy of the several Powers 
interested — Spain, France, Germany, and 



44 The Partition 

England — Morocco still remains unan- 
nexed, though it is to be hoped, for the 
sake of its wretched inhabitants, that that 
will not be for long ; it covers an area of 
220,000 square miles. 

The general result of our examination 
of the partition of Africa may be sum- 
marised briefly in the following table, in 
which an approximate estimate is given 
of the area claimed by the different Euro- 
pean Powers and that which may still be 
regarded as independent: 

Square miles. 

France 3,300,000 

Great Britain 2,300,000 

Germany 925,000 

Kongo Free State 900,000 

Portugal 750,000 

Italy (including Somaliland) . . . 420,000 

Spain 214,000 

Boer Republics 168,000 

Abyssinia 195,000 

Morocco 220,000 

Liberia 14,600 

Turkey (Egypt ^ and Tripoli) . . . 800,000 

Mahdi's territories 650,000 

Wadai 150,000 

Unannexed Sahara 800,000 

Lakes 68,0 00 

Total Africa 11,874,600 

^ Including regained territories on the Upper Nile. 



of Africa. 45 

At present these are little more than 
figures. It has been pointed out that 
the final crisis in the partition of Africa 
lies between France and Great Britain 
on the Niger and on the Nile. Whether 
the one succeeds or the other, in gaining 
its point, will not materially affect the 
figures in the above table ; but the result 
may have a very important bearing on 
the commercial and social development 
of the continent. It is not my business 
in this article to discuss the value of the 
various areas claimed by the different 
Powers; but, in conclusion, I may be 
allowed to point out one interesting fact. 
In the whole of Africa's nearly twelve 
million odd square miles there are prob- 
ably not more than 1,200,000 whites 
to 150,000,000 natives. Of the former 
750,000 are in Africa, south of the Zam- 
bezi, and over 300,000 in Algeria and 
Tunis, leaving 150,000 for all the rest of 
the continent. South Africa is the one 
section of the continent which may be- 
come the home of generations of Euro- 
peans, and in this respect England has 



46 



of Africa. 



fared best of all the Powers. Of the 
continent between the tropics, all experi- 
ence up to the present goes to show that 
it can never be colonised by white races, 
but must be developed by the natives 
under white supervision. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
IN AFRICA. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN 
AFRICA. 

BY W. T. STEAD. 
Editor of the " Review of Reviews ^^ 

LESS than forty years ago it was a 
commonly received doctrine among 
British statesmen that Africa was worth- 
less. A select Committee of the House 
of Commons, in the early sixties, reported 
that the settlements on the Wfest Coast 
of Africa cost more than they were worth, 
and recommended the gradual abandon- 
ment of the country. Even in the seven- 
ties there were eminent men who argued 
earnestly in favour of the abandonment 
of the whole of South Africa, with the 
exception of a coaling station at the Cape 
of Good Hope. But a change came o'er 
the spirit of the British dream when, in 
the early eighties, they saw" all the nations 
of Europe prepare to take part in a pas- 
sionate scramble for the Dark Continent. 
That which they despised and wished to 



50 The British Empire 

throw away in the sixties, became in the 
nineties the coveted objects of Imperial 
ambition. Now, when the century is 
closing, the pick of the continent is 
coloured British Red. 

British Africa can be variously de- 
scribed, — geographically, politically, eth- 
nologically, and religiously. But the 
simplest definition is this, all Africa that 
is comfortably habitable by white men is 
under the British flag or under British 
protection. And again, everything in 
Africa that pays dividends lies within the 
sphere pegged out for John Bull by his 
adventurous sons. Wherever in Africa 
you find land in which white-skinned 
children can be bred and reared, you will 
find it lies within the British zone. And 
wherever there is in Africa any paying 
property, that also will be found to be 
within the same sphere of influence. All 
of Africa that is habitable and all of 
Africa that pays its way, that is British 
Africa. 

The other nations have scrambled for 
John Bull's leavings. France, for in- 



in Africa. 51 



stance, has annexed the Sahara. In her 
West African colony of Senegal every 
fifth European is a French official. Ger- 
many has annexed 320,000 square miles of 
desert in the southwest, and 400,000 of 
semi-tropical land in the east; but they 
have more officials than colonists, more 
subsidies than dividends. Portugal has 
quite an empire of malarial marshes on 
both coasts. Belgium has the Kongo 
Free State, a magnificent empire in the 
heart of tropical Africa which needs 
;^8o,ooo a year subsidy from Belgium to 
keep it from bankruptcy, and which, not- 
withstanding the subsidy, has run up a 
debt of over ;^8,ooo,ooo. Italy, the last to 
join in the scramble, has nearly come to 
grief over her African adventure. Africa 
stands solely on the debit side of the ac- 
CQunt of every European nation but one, 
and even in the case of Britain the entries 
to the bad are neither few nor small. 

British Africa may be described in an- 
other way. Wherever you find a good 
harbour in Africa or a naviofable river or a 
great inland lake, there you may be sure ^ 



52 The British Empire 

the British flag is not far off. The Kongo 
is the only great African river which does 
not enter the sea under British protection. 
The Kongo was opened up, "boomed," 
and made accessible by Mr. Stanley, a 
British explorer; and its waters are as 
free to the flags of all nations as if they 
were British. The only harbour in South- 
ern Africa that is worth havinsf which is 
not British is Delagoa Bay, and John Bull 
to this day ruefully recalls the fact that he 
only lost that by allowing it to be sent 
to arbitration before a tribunal which took 
more account of musty little deeds of a 
remote past than the necessities of the liv- 
ing present. The only harbour on the 
southwest coast, the natural port of Ger- 
man Southwest Africa, is Walfisch Bay, 
where a British sentry stands on guard 
under the shade of the Union Jack. 
Wherever navigable water is, there the 
descendant of the old Vikings recognises 
his Fatherland even in the heart of Africa. 
Of the great lakes which lie in a long 
string from the Zambezi to the Nile, there 
is not one on whose shores there is not 



in Africa. 53 

a British possession. Even the smaller 
lakes, such as Lake Tchad, seem to at- 
tract the sea-rovers of the Northland. 

There is less objection taken by the 
other Powers to this extraordinary mo- 
nopoly of the ocean gates of a continent, 
because no other Power believes that its 
interests demand that it should admit all 
the world to its markets on equal terms 
with its own subjects. The British may be 
right, or they may be wrong. They make 
no claim to superiority of altruism to their 
neighbours. Their policy is undoubtedly 
prompted by self-interest ; but British, self- 
interest takes the form of opening all 
British possessions freely to the traders of 
the world, whereas the self-interest of 
other nations leads them to impose differ- 
ential and prohibitive duties upon the 
goods of foreign competitors. It is not 
surprising that the second vote of all the 
nations is given to Britain. So rigorously 
is this rule enforced that the Imperial 
Government ruthlessly rejected the pro- 
posals made by Mr. Rhodes, which 
tended, in the remote future, to the im- 



54 The British Empire 

position of heavier duties on foreign than 
on British-made goods. Britain has now 
occupied Egypt for fifteen years, but so 
far has she abused her opportunity to close 
the Egyptian market upon her rivals that 
the comparative volume of British trade to 
that of other nations is less to-day than 
it was before the country was occupied. 

Another reason why British rule has 
spread so rapidly is because England 
alone among the nations carried to Africa 
the principle of religious liberty conjoined 
with religious propaganda. British Africa 
is the product of three forces, — British 
conquest, British trade, and British mis- 
sions. And of the three the first counts 
for the least, and the last for the greatest 
factor in expansion of Britain in Africa. 
The Roman Catholic priests sent out by 
the Portuguese in olden days were zeal- 
ous but intolerant. The Roman Catholic 
priests sent out by the Freethinking 
French Republic have only recently ar- 
rived on the field. The few German and 
Swiss missionaries have been too few to 
leave much mark on the continent. But 



in Africa. 55 

British missionaries have been everywhere 
the pioneers of empire. The British fron- 
tier has advanced on the stepping-stones 
of missionary graves. Deduct the mis- 
sionary from the sum total of the forces 
which have coloured the African map red 
from Table Mountain to the Zambezi, and 
the Empire disappears. It was David 
Moffat, the missionary, who led the way 
into Central Africa from the south. It 
was his dauntless son-in-law, the mission- 
ary Livingstone, who pierced the heart of 
the Dark Continent in which he laid down 
his life ; and it was Moffat's successor, the 
missionary Mackenzie, who secured the 
open road from the Cape to the Zambezi 
along which Cecil Rhodes subsequently 
marched to empire. 

It is true that Britain did not first go to 
Africa to convert the heathen. It is a 
melancholy fact that her first relations 
with the African continent were those 
connected with the slave-trade. The 
West Coast was, in the sixteenth century, 
the great emporium of the trafHc in human 
beings. The first form of the scramble for 



56 The British Empire 

Africa took the shape of a keen competi- 
tion among the sea-faring nations for the 
profitable business of buying negroes 
cheap in the Gulf of Guinea, and selling 
them dear in the West Indies and in the 
Southern States. The slave-trade began 
in Elizabeth's reign. It was not finally 
extirpated till our century. On the whole, 
the ships of Europe are estimated to have 
transported ten million Africans to the 
American continent. Europe was the 
middleman in this traffic of the conti- 
nents. Africa sold, America bought. It 
was a rude system of emigration by which 
the overflow of the Old World was dis- 
charged upon the New. Of the 100,000 
dusky and involuntary emigrants who 
were transported across the Atlantic 
every year, about 30,000 sailed under the 
British flag. Britain, like the other na- 
tions, had her foot planted on the West 
African coast, not to colonise but to buy 
slaves. The first European settlements 
were little more than the African counter- 
part of Castle Garden, — barracoons where 
the expatriated ones from the interior were 



in Africa. 57 

mustered before their shipment to their 
ultimate destination. As wars were fre- 
quent in those days, and every man had 
more or less to fight for his own band, the 
French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and 
the British studded the coast with forts, a 
few of which still remain, although their 
original use has long since disappeared. 
After the slave-trade was suppressed in 
1808, the prosperity of the Guinea Coast 
dwindled, and it was many years before 
the trade in gin and other alcoholic drinks 
revived the fortunes of the West African 
merchants. Then the scramble for mar- 
kets recommenced. The Germans, who 
manufacture the cheapest intoxicant, en- 
tered the field. The soldier came to the 
rescue of the trader. Britain twice sent 
an armed force to dictate terms in the 
capital of Ashanti. The French crushed 
Dahomey, despite the army of Amazons, 
and bickering about the respective limits 
of the hinterlands of the three Powers 
has been going on ever since. 

In West Africa the British possessions 
are none of them colonies in the sense of 



58 The British Empire 

being territories in which Britons settle 
and found families to rear up new nations. 
The climate forbids that. The only white 
men on the coast are officials, traders, and 
missionaries. Sierra Leone, long known 
as the White Man's Grave, was but typi- 
cal of the whole of the group of West 
African possessions. These possessions 
may be thus described. 

1. The Gambia, a Crown colony, gov- 
erned by an administrator appointed by 
the Colonial Office in London, is chiefly 
notable because it commands the mouth 
of the river Gambia, the only West 
African river navigable by ocean-going 
steamers. Its exports consist almost en- 
tirely of ground-nuts, which are crushed 
for their oil in France ; its imports, gun- 
powder, gin, cotton, and sugar. Popula- 
tion, 13,000; revenue, ;!f 25,000; exports 
and imports, ;^2 25,ooo. First discovered 
by the Portuguese ; founded by the British 
in 1686. 

2. Sierra Leone was ceded to Britain in 
1787 by the native chief, to form an asy- 
lum for destitute negroes in England. It 



in Africa. 59 

was, therefore, a colony proper, founded 
to receive emigrants. Many liberated 
slaves were settled there. The colony 
stretches along i8o miles of coast-line. 
Its trade consists of exchanging palm-oil 
and palm kernels for hardware, cotton, gun- 
powder, tobacco, and spirits, — a Crown 
colony, with governor appointed by the 
Crown. Revenue, ;^ 1 10,000; exports and 
imports, ;^940,ooo. Attached to the col- 
ony there is a protectorate over about 
20,000 miles in the neighbourhood. 

3. The Gold Coast stretches about 250 
miles along the coast, and extends some 
300 miles into the interior, with an indefi- 
nite hinterland. It was first founded by a 
chartered company; the settlements were 
transferred to the Crown in 182 1. In 
1874 they were constituted a separate col- 
ony, with a governor appointed by the 
Crown. Population, 1,500,000, of whom 
150 are Europeans; revenue, ;^240,ooo; 
imports and exports, ;^ 1,5 70,000; exports, 
gold, ivory, copal, palm-oil, rubber; im- 
ports, cotton, alcohol, and hardware. 

4. Lagos, like Sierra Leone, is a colony 



6o The British Empire 

and a protectorate. It was the headquar- 
ters of the slave-trade. Then it became a 
great missionary centre. In 1861 it was 
taken over by Britain, and in 1886 was 
established as a separate colony, with a 
governor of its own. Exports, palm-oil 
and kernels, and imports, chiefly cotton 
goods (;^2 70,000), spirits (;^ 106,000), and 
tobacco (;^25,ooo). Population, 2,000,000 ; 
revenue, ;!^ 140,000; exports and imports, 
;^ 1,900,000. 

5. The Niger Coast Protectorate covers 
the whole coast from Lagos to the Ger- 
man possessions in the Kameruns, except 
the mouth of the Niger. Governed by a 
Royal Commissioner. Protectorate estab- 
lished in 1885. Recently its authority 
was carried farther inland by an expedi- 
tion which suppressed human sacrifices 
in Benin city. Exports, palm-oil, ker- 
nels, rubber, ebony, and ivory; imports, 
cotton, cutlery, and coopers' stores. Reve- 
nue, ;!f 1 50,000; imports and exports, 
;^ 1, 600,000. 

6. The Royal Niger Company. This 
chartered company, with a capital of 



in Africa. 6i 

;!f 1,100,000, has established the most 
prosperous of all the West African colo- 
nies. It is practically sovereign over the 
whole of the Lower and Middle Niger. 
It has its own army and fleet. It makes 
treaties, levies war, conquers territory, 
suppresses the slave-trade, and, in short, 
exercises sovereign authority over the 
wealthiest and most populous region in 
all Central Africa. The Niger Company 
is much more rigorous in restricting the 
sale of rifles and of spirits into its pos- 
sessions than any other British colony. 
North of latitude 7, all import of spirits 
is interdicted, and elsewhere so high a 
duty has been charged that the import of 
rum and gin has dwindled to one-fourth 
what it was before the charter was 
granted. Exports, rubber, palm-oil, ivory, 
guns, and hides ; imports, cotton, woollens, 
silks, hardware, salt, and earthenware. The 
chief man is Sir George Taubman Goldie, 
the Cecil Rhodes of West Africa, a quiet, 
determined little man, with a genius for 
government, whose word is law among 
30,000,000 of Africans, and who, when 



6a The British Empire 

that word is not obeyed, teaches the diso- 
bedient with Maxim guns that the way of 
the transgressor is hard. 

When we pass from West Africa to 
East Africa, we come to a totally different 
class of possessions. Properly speaking, 
Britain possesses nothing in East Africa. 
All that is British on the East Coast, until 
you come to Zululand, is denominated 
Protectorate. In a protectorate there is less 
direct government by Britain. In a Crown 
colony the laws are made and administered 
by the Government. In a protectorate 
the British undertake to protect the na- 
tive authorities from foreign attack, to put 
down the slave-trade, to restrain inter- 
necine war, to open up trade routes, to 
maintain a kind of Roman peace; but 
otherwise the inhabitants are left very 
much to do as they please. Protecto- 
rates are looked after by commissioners 
who are also Consuls-General. They are 
appointed by the Crown. British domi- 
nation in East Africa began in our own 
times. For half a century and more the 
natives of India crossing the sea had estab- 



in Africa. 63 

lished themselves in business largely as 
money-lenders in Zanzibar. But no Euro- 
pean Power had planted its foot on the 
equatorial East. In 1888, however, thanks 
chiefly to the enterprise of a Scotchman, 
the Imperial British East Africa Company 
was formed and incorporated by Royal 
Charter. It received permission to accept 
a lease, to administer territories lying be- 
tween the Indian Ocean and the great 
equatorial lakes. This chartered com- 
pany never paid. " You cannot run a 
fort on coffee planting," said Mr. Rhodes. 
" Gold or diamonds can do it — nothing 
else." So after a time the company was 
wound up, receiving ^250,000 for its as- 
sets, and the task of administering its 
million square miles was undertaken by 
the Imperial fort. This was in 1895. Its 
sphere of influence was then divided up 
into the following protectorates: 

1. The East African, capital Mombasa, 
the finest harbour on the East Coast. 

2. Uganda, the pearl of Africa, discov- 
ered by Mr. Stanley, snatched by Captain 
Lugard from the hands of the French, and 



64 The British Empire 

now in the throes of a mutiny, is the cock- 
pit of Central Africa. Heathens, Protes- 
tants, and CathoHcs are always struggling 
for the mastery. It is the land of romance 
and of the unexpected. It commands the 
northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza 
and the head waters of the Nile. 

3. The Witu Protectorate is a small 
tract of land governed by a Sultan, with a 
British Resident, at the mouth of the river 
Tana. 

4. Zanzibar, the great commercial en- 
trepot of Eastern Africa. Population of 
the island, 250,000. Exports and imports 
of the port, not including trans-shipments 
in harbour, £ 2,400,100 per annum. Gov- 
erned by a Sultan, under a British Com- 
missioner, since 1890. 

5. Nyassaland. This is now called the 
British Central Africa Protectorate. It is 
an appendage to Lake Nyassa. It is ap- 
proached by the Zambezi, and is notable 
as the seat of the Blantyre mission station, 
as a thriving coffee plantation, and as a 
scene of almost continual warfare against 
the slave-traders. 



in Africa, 65 

Of all the regions now administered by 
the British, those of East Africa supply 
most elements of adventure and of ro- 
mance. There we see white men from 
the Northern European seas, using the 
fighting men of Northern India in order 
to establish a Roman peace among the 
black races of Central Africa. Europe uses 
Asia as her sword to civihse Africa. These 
regions are continually witnessing scenes 
that recall the adventures of Ivanhoe or 
the warlike prowess of the Lion Heart; 
but the Knights Templar of to-day wear 
white felt helmets and use Maxims, steam- 
boats, locomotive engines, and the print- 
ing-press as their instruments of conquest. 
On Lake Nyassa there are two gunboats, 
and in East Africa the British Govern- 
ment is spending three million sterling in 
constructing a railway 6co miles long, 
w^hich will place the seaboard in direct 
railway communication with the heart of 
Central Africa. Three thousand coolies 
have been employed on the line since 
January, 1896, and the rate of construction 
is now said to be about half a mile a day. 



66 The British Empire 

We now come to the most important 
section of British Africa, that which Hes 
at the southern extremity of the great con- 
tinent. It is only in this southern section 
that the British race is founding colonies 
properly so called. In the lofty plateaux 
of Southern Africa the climate is so de- 
lightful that the country is becoming the 
sanatorium of the Empire. Mr. Cecil 
Rhodes himself was first sent out to the 
Cape in the forlorn hope that South 
Africa might enable him to throw off the 
consumption that appeared to have seated 
itself on his lungs. Olive Schreiner de- 
clares that after one has breathed the air 
of the Karoo, the air anywhere else seems 
thick and heavy. There is champagne in 
its atmosphere. It is not only the climate 
that is attractive. South Africa has been 
for the past twenty years the great El Do- 
rado of the world. No other continent 
has ever produced within such narrow lim- 
its such a Golconda as the diamond mines 
of De Beers, such a storehouse of gold as 
the Rand of Johannesburg. Out of the 
blue clay at Kimberley there have been 



in Africa. 6"] 

dug, in the last twenty years, diamonds 
which have been sold for ;^ 70,000,000. 
Out of the Reef below Johannesburg gold 
has been brought to bank of the value of 
^50,000,000. The annual output is ap- 
proaching ^10,000,000, and before the 
Rand is exhausted it is calculated gold 
valued at ^450,000,000 will be brought to 
bank. Behind the Diamond Fields and 
golden Johannesburg lies the land of 
Ophir of Rhodesia where, as yet, mining 
operations have only just begun. Greater, 
how^ever, than diamonds and more valu- 
able than gold is the master of diamonds 
and of gold. South Africa is chiefly fa- 
mous as the pedestal of Cecil Rhodes, the 
most conspicuous and commanding per- 
sonalitv which the British colonies have 
produced in our generation. The limits 
of space allotted to these articles render it 
impossible to describe, except in the brief- 
est detail, the great divisions of Residen- 
tial Africa. But before entering upon the 
detail of the provinces it is necessary to 
say a word as to the general location of 
the whole. South Africa is all British 



68 The British Empire 

with the exception of the German protec- 
torate over the desert region in the south- 
west, and the narrow strip of Portuguese 
territory that cuts off the Transvaal and 
Rhodesia from the sea. The Germans 
have no port The Portuguese have 
two, — Beira and Louren9o Marquez on 
Delagoa Bay. With these exceptions all 
South Africa, from the Cape to far to the 
north of the Zambezi, lies under the shel- 
tering protection of the British flag. 
Within the British influence are the two 
Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the 
Orange Free State. These republics are 
absolutely free from any interference in 
their internal affairs from without. They 
have the protection without the taxation 
or the authority of the Empire. Sooner 
or later they will abandon their attitude 
of isolation and unite with the colonies 
by which they are surrounded. As Mr. 
Rhodes recently declared : " Although we 
human atoms may divide this country, 
nature does not. Nature does not and 
the Almighty does not. Whether in 
Cape Town, in Durban, or in Rho- 



in Africa. 69 

desia, the interests are the same. The 
languages are the same. Those who form 
these States are the same, connected in 
their family and domestic relations and 
the like ; and any one who tries to sepa- 
rate them in that feeling and action is 
doing an impossible thing." South Africa 
one and indivisible from Table Mountain 
to the great Equatorial lakes is the idea of 
Cecil Rhodes ; and when Cecil Rhodes 
thinks, thoughts are things. 

The premier colony in South Africa, 
that of the Cape, has now extended itself 
so far up-country that its title is a misno- 
mer. Originally discovered by the Portu- 
guese, it was first colonised by the Dutch 
in 1652. For a hundred years it was little 
more than a naval station, with a back 
country useful for the settlement, where 
native labour was plentiful and native land 
could be had, if not for the asking, then 
for the shooting. When the French 
Revolutionary wars broke out, the exiled 
Prince of Orange made over the Cape to 
the British, who promptly took possession 
in 1796. They gave it back, however, at 



70 The British Empire 

the Peace of Amiens, in 1803; but when 
war broke out again it was recaptured by 
the British, in 1806, and it has never since 
passed out of their possession. The 
Dutch to this day are in a majority of 
the agricultural population, not only in the 
Boer Republics, but in the Cape Colony 
itself. When the British came, their 
ideas as to the rights of slaves to free- 
dom offended the conservative Boers, who 
trekked northward to lands where the 
divine right of slavery was not interfered 
with, and the meddling Britishers would 
not be able to interfere with their peculiar 
institution. But many of the Dutch re- 
mained behind, and to this day the farm- 
ing interest in the Cape is substantially 
Dutch. The natives were tolerably thick 
on the ground at first ; but the coming of 
the white men thinned them off. The 
Hottentots and Bushmen are vanishing 
like the Maori and the Australian aborig- 
ines. Far different was the case of the 
Kaffir, the sturdy child of the great Bantu 
race. In him the white man, whether 
Dutch or British, has encountered a man 



in Africa. 71 

as vigorous as himself. The Bantu is not 
dying out. He is increasing and multi- 
plying and replenishing South Africa. 
The black and white races are flourishing 
side by side, and the great question of the 
future is, how their mutual multiplication 
may be so ordered as to leave room for 
both. Cape Colony has been continually 
extending its frontiers northward. 

For a long time it halted at the Orange 
River; but when it had taken over the 
Diamond Fields, it began a northward 
march, which is now halting for a time on 
the southern frontier of Matabeleland. Its 
area is 275,000 square miles. Its govern- 
ment is democratic. The Crown appoints 
a Governor and High Commissioner; but 
the right of the Colony to govern itself 
through its own representatives is almost 
as absolute as that of any State in the 
American Union. There are two houses 
of Parliament, both elective ; the Legisla- 
tive Council consists of 23 members, the 
House of Assembly of 79. The franchise 
is not denied to the natives on the ground 
of colour; but the representatives are all 
white. 



72 The British Empire 

The population of Cape Colony in 1891 
was 1,600,000, of whom only 380,000 were 
white. The Dutch dwell in the country, 
and preponderate in the Western prov- 
ince. The English fxock to the towns 
and are strongest in the East. There 
are about 3,000 miles of railway built or 
building. The chief exports in 1896 to 
the United Kingdom were: Diamonds, 
;^4,50o,ooo; wool (sheep), ^2,330,000; 
wool (goat), ;^490,ooo; ostrich feathers, 
;^490,ooo; copper ore, ^300,000. Alto- 
gether the total exports amounted to 
;^ 1 7,000,000, while the imports were 
about ;;f 18,000,000. 

The central feature of South Africa is 
its mountainous plateau. At about 150 
miles from the seaboard the mountains 
rise in a lofty table-land, which stretches 
over 1,000 miles northward. It is on this 
table-land Europeans live and thrive. 

The colony of Natal was first colonised 
in 1824 by a handful of Englishmen. The 
Boers tried to effect a lodgment in the 
country, but were beaten by the Zulus 
who occupied the land, and shortly after 



in Africa. 73 

the Governor of the Cape formally an- 
nexed Natal to the Cape. It lies front- 
ing the Indian Ocean with a seaboard of 
180 miles. Durban is the only port. It 
has 420 miles of railway which, as is usual 
in South Africa, are owned and worked 
by the Government. The area is about 
20,000 square miles, its population 
540,000, of whom not 50,000 are white. 
There are 40,000 Indian coolies, but the 
enormous majority of the population are 
Zulus. The country is mountainous, fer- 
tile, and healthy. It contains coal, and 
yields tropical produce. Its exports in 
1896 included wool, ;^6oo,ooo; coal, 
;^ 1 00,000. Its imports were ;^6,4oo,ooo, 
but most of these were for the Transvaal. 
The exports were only ;^ 2, 000,000. 

Between Natal and the Cape there are 
the two native locations, or reserves, of 
Basutoland and Pondoland. The latter was 
annexed to the Cape quite recently. Basu- 
toland is a native State of 250,000 popula- 
tion. The chiefs govern their own peo- 
ple, subject to the control of the British 
Commission. Basutoland is 10,000 square 



74 The British Empire 

miles in extent, has a delightful climate, is 
well watered, very mountainous, and pro- 
duces great quantities of cattle and of 
grain; revenue, ;^45,ooo; exports and im- 
ports, ;if 300,000. To the north of Natal 
lies Zululand, chiefly famous for the 
war of 1879. It was not annexed until 
1887, when part of the territory had been 
taken by the Boers. It is very largely 
kept as a native reserve, Europeans being 
only permitted to settle in one district. It 
is technically described as a British terri- 
tory governed by a Resident Commis- 
sioner and chief magistrate under the 
Governor of Natal. 

The two Republics of the Transvaal 
and of the Orange Free State lie between 
Natal and the northward extension of the 
Cape Colony. The Orange Free State 
is an inoffensive pastoral community of 
Boers. The Transvaal was a great ranch. 
It is now, thanks chiefly to the extraordi- 
nary gold reef on which Johannesburg 
stands, one of the greatest gold-producing 
countries in the world. It is an anomaly 
and an anachronism. Nowhere else in 



in Africa. 75 

the whole world is an overwhelming ma- 
jority of English-speaking men governed 
by a minority, speaking a foreign tongue, 
without any voice in the framing of their 
own laws and without any rights as citi- 
zens. It will pass, and the Transvaal will 
take its natural place in the federation of 
united South Africa. 

On the west of the Transvaal stretches 
the vast expanse of the Protectorate of 
Bechuanaland, now traversed by the rail- 
way to Matabeleland, which is, however, 
but small compensation for the rinderpest 
which has swept off the herds of South 
Africa. 

To the north lies the land of contro- 
versy and of mystery, the famous Charter- 
land of Rhodesia, a territory many times 
larger than the German Empire, which 
has been reclaimed from savagery to col- 
onisation and civilisation by the genius 
of the only millionaire with imagination 
which the century has brought forth. 
The British South African Company, 
which in 1889 received a Royal Charter 
authorising it to develop and administer 



76 The British Empire 

the lands lying between Bechuanaland 
and the Zambezi, was the creation of Mr. 
Rhodes's brain. Mr. Rhodes, the Dia- 
mond King of South Africa, had a soul 
above diamonds. He saw that the 
territory lying north of Bechuanaland 
would be snapped up by the Germans or 
secured for ranching by the Boers trek- 
king from the Transvaal. He conceived 
the idea of creating a joint stock company 
with a capital of two millions and more 
which would enable him "to paint the 
African map British red" all the way 
up to the Zambezi. The Imperial Gov- 
ernment absolutely refused to expend a 
pound on any such enterprise. Mr. 
Rhodes undertook to raise the money 
and to direct the operation. The Gov- 
ernment, believing, as they said, that 
such a chartered company could "relieve 
Her Majesty's Government from diplo- 
matic difficulties and heavy expenditure," 
granted the charter. 

Then Mr. Rhodes set to work. He put 
his own money into the Company, and 
others, inspired by a similar enthusiasm, 



in Africa. '^'j 

joined their capital to his. On June 28th, 
1890, the pioneer expedition of 200 Euro- 
peans and 150 labourers, accompanied by 
500 mounted police, set out to take pos- 
session of the Land of Ophir. They cut 
a road for 400 miles across the country, 
established posts and stations ; and at last 
were disbanded at Fort Salisbury on Sep- 
tember 19th, having established themselves 
in Mashonaland at a net cost of ;^89,285 
\os, od. without firing a shot or spending 
a life. Settlers in search of gold poured 
into the country. To feed them, it was 
necessary to open a w^ay to the sea at 
Beira, and this brought them into sharp 
collision with the Portuguese. The diffi- 
culty was arranged by a concession for the 
construction of a railway from the sea to 
the upland held by the Company, over 
which goods can be brought without pay- 
ing any other tax but a transit duty of 
three per cent. The mines in Mashona- 
land were in full work when a new diffi- 
culty loomed on the western frontier of 
the new colony. Lobengula, the Chief of 
the warlike Matabele, was urged by his 



78 The British Empire 

young warriors to allow them to flash 
their spears on the newcomers. He re- 
sisted for a time, but at last he gave way. 
An impi threatened the miners with 
destruction. Mr. Rhodes instantly took 
action. Placing ;^5o,ooo to the credit of 
the Company, he ordered Dr. Jameson to 
raise and equip an expeditionary force 
and to march on Buluwayo, Lobengula's 
kraal. One little force, 1,227 strong, of 
whom only 672 were whites, marched 
from the east; another of 445 of the 
Bechuanaland police came from the 
south. Against them Lobengula hurled 
first 5,000, then 7,000 of his best fighting 
men. They dashed themselves to pieces 
against the British laager. Buluwayo 
was captured, Lobengula fled, and Mr. 
Rhodes found himself in possession of 
Matabeleland. His force had only lost 
84 men killed and 55 wounded. The 
total cost of the war was only ^113,488 
2S. \\d. This was in 1893. The success 
was too brilliant and too complete. It 
tempted Dr. Jameson to essay the daring 
raid on the Transvaal which in the early 



in Africa, 79 

days of 1895 led to so overwhelming a 
disaster. Not only was Dr. Jameson's 
force made prisoners, but the Matabele, 
seeing the country denuded of its usual 
garrison, rose in revolt. Then the Impe- 
rial authorities were compelled to inter- 
vene, and send up troops to assist the 
colonists to hold their own against the 
insurgent natives. Mr. Rhodes, although 
in disgrace, and stripped of all his offices, 
was still the master of the situation. The 
natives trusted him and accepted terms of 
peace on his guaranty. After the sup- 
pression of the revolt the constitution of 
the Charter was modified so as to place 
the control of the armed forces of the Com- 
pany in the hands of a representative of 
the Crown. 

The future of Rhodesia, which covers a 
region of 750,000 square miles stretch- 
ing from the Transvaal to Tanganyika, 
depends upon the quantity of paying gold 
that may be discovered. Plenty of aurif- 
erous mineral exists, but until the stamps 
needed to crush the ore can be brought 
up, nothing can be said positively as to 



8o The British Empire 

the fate of the millions which have been 
invested under the aegis of the Chartered 
Company. Mr. Rhodes himself is as con- 
fident as ever in the future of the country 
that bears his name. It will, he believes, 
yield good dividends as well as good poli- 
tics — but of the two he is much more 
anxious about the latter. 

History is still in the making in South 
Africa; but unless all past experience 
fails us as a guide to the probabilities of 
the future, the hold on South Africa now 
acquired by the English-speaking race will 
never be relaxed. The Cape is the key- 
stone of the arch of the British Empire. 
Without the coaling stations at Simon s 
Bay, steam communication between Brit- 
ain and Australia would be difficult, if not 
impossible. Hence the retention of the 
Cape, and all that is necessary to the 
safety of the Cape, is one of the few 
things which, if threatened, the British at 
home and over-sea regard as necessary to 
fight for without discussion and without 
phrase. 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE IN 
AFRICA. 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE IN 
AFRICA. 

BY F. BLEY, 

Late District Governor in East Africa^ and Member of the Ger' 
man East African Society* 

IT was the political principle of the 
German Government up to very 
recent times not to seek colonial aggran- 
disement. Prince Bismarck took posses- 
sion of African lands mainly because of 
their possible worth, as objects of future 
barter. A colony had been founded in 
southern Brazil by a union of patriots in 
Hamburg as early as 1848 ; but this idea 
of obtaining a transmarine outlet for sur- 
plus German enterprise fell in abeyance 
with so many other popular ideals of that 
revolutionary year. 

The nation lived to see the axiom set 
up that the flag of the Fatherland was to 
follow, not precede German merchantmen 
or pioneers, and to hear from the lips of 
the Imperial Chancellor, Count Caprivi, 



84 The German Empire 

that " the worst thing that any one could 
do to Germany would be to give it the 
whole of Africa." 

In contrast to this view stands the 
opinion of the men who are practically 
active in colonial affairs; they believe 
that the future of the German race will 
be determined essentially upon the soil of 
Africa. And, indeed, it is only necessary 
to glance at the map of the great Dark 
Continent, and contemplate the historic 
struggle of the Low German Boers 
against the aggressive tendencies of 
Great Britain, to find a support for this 
hypothesis. 

The Germans received the accounts of 
Krapf, Mauch, Rohlf, and Schweinfurth, 
their native explorers in Africa, with scep- 
tical indifference. On the other side of 
the canal the English greeted the dis- 
coveries of Burton, Speke, and even those 
of Stanley, as self-evident facts, saying 
to themselves, in accordance with their 
wonted material sense, that the interior of 
Africa could not be a sun-parched desert, 
possibly because mighty rivers flowed 



in Africa. 85 

down from the interior, and products 
were brought away from it by traders. 

If the English Government did not at 
once seize the territory thus recognised 
as fertile and valuable, the reason lay in 
the fact of its having its hands full at the 
time in other parts of the world, as well 
as in the fact that it remained in igno- 
rance of the change which had taken place 
in the German character under the gui- 
dance of Prince Bismarck. From a people 
given up to romantic idealism, a nation 
of ironlike hardness of will had been 
evolved, which, when the partition of 
Africa began, was to demand its due 
share of spoils and conquests. 

England looked on while Germany ac- 
quired African territory in the east and 
west with surprise and good-natured 
mockery at first. But when it saw that 
the land-rat had not fallen into the water 
by accident, but knew how to swim, and 
intended to keep on, British envy was 
aroused ; and by degrees it has learned 
to see in Germany a power which it is 
destined to encounter henceforth, not only 



86 The German Empire 

in the Dark Continent, but in every other 
part of the world. 

In the beginning, this jealousy was 
exerted with some success. From longi- 
tude 48° east, around Cape Guardafui to 
f/ Rovuma, Dr. Peters had laid claim to the 
coast-lands in the name of Germany. And 
if German diplomacy had acquiesced in 
his plans, the flag of Germany would be 
waving to-day over Uganda and the pal- 
aces of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Instead 
of this the Government signed one treaty 
after another, allowing that which had 
been acquired de facto to become a sub- 
ject of dispute and the claims of others, 
while the German people, in the ingrati- 
tude it showed to the founder of its East 
African colonies, proved once again its 
want of insight into the historic task of 
helping to extend civilisation. 

Fortunately, that part of East Africa 
which was assured to Germany is the 
more valuable one. Its boundaries in- 
close an area of 885,000 square kilometres, 
which is to say an area twice as large as 
the German Empire. In this territory lie 



in Africa. 87 

Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria, and the 
north side of the Nyassa. The wonderful 
summit of the ice-covered Kihmanjaro 
sends from its fountain sources the clear, 
sparkling rivers of the Pangani, while the 
rivers Wami, Lungerengere, and Kingani 
have their origin in the wooded sides of 
Usagara and Ukami, which remind one 
of the mountainous region of the Hartz 
and the Salz Kammergut. 

The Rufiji River is navigable for boats 
of 2 J metres displacement as far as the 
Pangani Cataracts, and the seaboard of 
this province is the richest in harbours of 
all the East African coast. 

The natives, who belong essentially to 
the Bantu race, are divided into several 
branches with various traits. On the 
whole they are tractable, and may be 
trained to work if they are treated with 
justice and humanity. Nor is a certain 
superior intelligence and capacity for re- 
flection wanting to them. It happened 
more than once during my sojourn among 
them that their chieftains expressed a 
sense of their own native want of the 



88 The German Empire 

talent for organisation. " It is good you 
are here, lord," the chieftain in my station, 
Usungula, declared often. "You under- 
stand things better than we do. Look at 
this house. It is made of the clay of our 
earth, and with the hands of our bodies; 
but it was your head that gave to it regu- 
larity and great size. You take the axe to 
labour, and the hatred of brothers you allay 
by treaties of peace. You alone are lord, 
and it is well. Each of us strove to be 
master, and none was. But you are rich ; 
you have pieces of shining silver, and the 
caravans bring you more continually for 
our people. We went in rags, and hunger 
ate at our vitals in the wet seasons of the 
year. We have clothes now in our huts 
as fine as those of Arabic traders, and we 
possess bright rupees with which to buy 
us goats and fowls and rice when we 
are hungry. You are lord, for you knew 
how to order all things so as to make 
them flow even and smooth as the little 



rains." 



In regard to its soil. East Africa affords 
considerable variety, as is evident, indeed, 



in Africa. 89 

that it must, by reason of its topography. 
There are no mighty primeval forests, 
such as cover the mountain districts of 
Ceylon and Sumatra ; but the wooded 
mountain districts of Usambara, Usagara, 
Ukami, and Ukonde, as well as its boun- 
dary districts of Kilimanjaro, are well 
suited for plantations to be carried on 
after the manner of those of the Dutch; 
while in the bottom-lands, sugar-cane, to- 
bacco, rice, and certain kinds of spices 
flourish luxuriantly. 

The capital of the province of Dar-es- 
Salaam, in the point of construction, is a 
pattern city, and, what is the chief thing, 
the plantations of Usambara are making 
brilliant progress. The coffee raised there 
is rapidly winning a market for itself. In 
short, there can exist no doubt but that 
German East Africa will succeed before 
long in furnishing valuable agricultural 
products in exchange for the productions 
of German industry. Our capitalists per- 
ceive this, too, for they are investing more 
and more in East African stocks. 

Many of the original African products 



po The German Empire 

are doomed to fall way, and ultimately 
to entirely disappear. Copal will proba- 
bly begin to be furnished from the far 
interior after the supply has been ex- 
hausted on the coast-land, and continue 
to be an article of trade for some years to 
come, copal-trees being found inland, in- 
dicating the existence of this fossil gum 
there. But the days of the ivory trade are 
numbered ; it must end wdth the vanish- 
ing of the elephant herds. This, to my 
mind, is a consummation devoutly to be 
wished, for with the passing away of these 
herds will cease the brutal hunting of the 
natives as slaves to carry tusks ; and, pos- 
sibly, the few remaining animals may then 
be trained for beasts of burden, as elephants 
are in India. With no more slave raids, 
there will likewise end the internecine 
wars which have hindered the natural 
increase of the native population hitherto. 
In the long run, the negro comprises the 
chief wealth of Africa. The advance of 
civilisation and its need for increasing 
quantities of manufactured goods depends 
upon the multiplication of population. 



in Africa. 91 

East Africa has an advantage over all 
tropical provinces belonging to Germany, 
in possessing, in the high lying district of 
Uhehe and the border mountains of the 
Nyassa, moist meadow-lands in which the 
usual unhealthy conditions of equatorial 
latitude are neutralised by an Alpine-like 
climate. 

The present Governor intends, with the 
aid of influential corporations, to make use 
of this most favoured locality by establish- 
ing a peasant settlement therein, in which 
case, I hope the settlement will devote its 
energies, not to raising graip, but to breed- 
ing cattle, raising ostrich herds, and the 
like, after the manner followed by the 
Boers in the Orange Free State. The 
climate and soil of the Nyassa district and 
Uhehe resemble those of the Free State 
in all particulars. What will be the result 
of the transplanting of a colony of white 
men to these mountain regions is an open 
question. Everything appears favourable 
to the increase of the Caucasian race there. 

The prospects for the future in the two 
other chief possessions of West Africa are 



92 The German Empire 

similar to those of German East Africa, 
except, indeed, as to what concerns the 
two last mentioned districts. In Togo 
and Kamerun, the hinterland had been 
allowed to be deplorably cut into, and 
partly cut off, by other Powers. It was 
above all in the Togo treaties that the 
German Government erred gravely, in- 
asmuch as, for the specious gain of a 
strip of coast twenty-five kilometres long, 
it relinquished the piece of territory which 
connected its possessions with the Niger 
River. Borgu and Gurma were ceded to 
France, and with the concession the ex- 
pansion of German influence was relin- 
quished toward the north. The land 
which remains in our possession, however, 
is most valuable. It is traversed by a 
double range of mountains, which rise 
abruptly from an undulating plain, and 
give origin to numerous rivers which flow 
from their sides to the coast, — the Mono, 
Haho, Sio, Tojie, and the tributaries of 
the Volta: Kalagba, Djavoe, Deine, 
Konsu, Asukoho, and Oti. The great 
Volta itself flows through the highland 



in Africa. 93 

in a broad valley, and is navigable from 
Kratji on downward. 

Togo could be reckoned among the 
countries of the Southern Hemisphere as 
far as the climate is concerned, for the 
season of maximum heat corresponds with 
the Northern winter, and that of mini- 
mum heat to the Northern summer. The 
coldest months are those of July and 
August. The principal products of the 
soil are brought to the trading factories 
that have been established in the province 
by native negroes, who compose a branch 
of the Sudan negroes, and possess the 
same energetic traits which distinguish 
the Sudanese. 

Among these products are palm-tree-oil 
and nuts, copra, cocoanuts, gutta-percha, 
and ivory. Plantations also of coffee and 
Maitihot Glaziovii have been laid out. 

Still more favourable than Togo seems 
to be the situation of the plantations in 
Kamerun ; for the mountains of the prov- 
ince draw near the coast, and their west- 
ern slope affords, in its soil of decayed 
lava, with plentiful rainfalls, the most ex- 



94 The German Empire 

cellent conditions for the cultivation of 
cocoa and coffee trees. Over half a mil- 
lion of cocoa-trees already stand on this 
slope, and new plantations are about to 
be started. 

The other products are the same as in 
Togo. In the south a kind of coffee bush 
has been discovered, which may, perhaps, 
obtain importance some day as a staple 
article. 

German Southwest Africa presents quite 
different conditions, being of a sub-tropi- 
cal character, and suitable for European 
immigrants. It is the last territory ac- 
quired by Germany. Herr von Luderitz 
bought it in the year 1883, without know- 
ing much about it, and placed it under 
the protection of the Imperial flagship 
" Leipsic " in 1884. 

It appeared to be of little worth. The 
coast, which stretches from Cunene to the 
Orange River, that is to say from a Por- 
tuguese to an English colony, is not 
merely inhospitable, it is dreadful. Sand- 
dunes squat like bands of crouching 
Titans on it and shift from place to place, 



in Africa. 95 

burying all beneath them. The only har- 
bour, Angra Pequena, affords but a bad 
connection with the interior, and Walfisch 
Bay with its tolerable inlet into Damara- 
land, was in the hands of the all-grasping 
English. So the acquisition of Southwest 
Africa appeared a poor enough bargain, 
and Germans generally took it for granted 
that the wandering sand-hills could not so 
much as supply a turtle with water and 
food to keep it alive. But Liideritz be- 
thought himself of the fact that a flourish- 
ing export trade in ivory, ostrich feathers, 
gums, skins, and horns had been carried 
on from this country as late as i860; and, 
granting that the game in the meanwhile 
might have become exterminated, still the 
grass-lands must remain which had sup- 
ported it. Besides, as late as the develop- 
ment of Kimberley, in 1872, large numbers 
of cattle had been shipped from here to 
the country of the Boers. Hence fertile 
lands must lie somewhere, and Luderitz 
thought he recognised them in the high- 
lands of the interior. 

Unfortunately, he met with his death on 



96 The German Empire 

an exploring tour, and before he had had 
the time to convey his own growing con- 
viction of the immense worth of South- 
west Africa to his countrymen at home. 
The Government was so ignorant that it 
felt embarrassed and annoyed over the 
need of settling with the heirs of the cour- 
ageous man, and regarded the offer of a 
syndicate in 1885 to purchase the Llide- 
ritz family claims as a favour to the State. 
Its inadequate protection, furthermore, and 
its ill management of the province, en- 
couraged the English to stir up the natives 
to rebellion ; and these political difficulties 
discouraged, of course, money investment. 
Southwest Africa, in short, was considered 
for a long time as a very bad job ; and 
Count Caprivi appears to have been pre- 
pared to cede it to England in 1890, 
whenever an opportunity should occur. 
It was public opinion chiefly which saved 
the province to the German Crown; for 
the scientific reports of travellers slowly 
and surely aroused the people to a sense 
of its potentialities, as well as the determi- 
nation to hold for themselves what they 



in Africa. 97 

had acquired. The Government, in the 
mean time» however, had unfortunately 
granted two charters to English com- 
panies, — one to what is known as the 
Southwest African Company, in 1893, 
and a second to what became the South 
African Territories Land Company, in 
1895 ; and these had to remain in force 
henceforth to the disadvantage of German 
interests. At the present time, the pro- 
vince can boast of an energetic and cir- 
cumspect Governor. Major Leutwein not 
only facilitates immigration, but proposes 
to domesticate it by obtaining subsidies 
for the importation of such German women 
as are suitable to become the wives of 
German pioneers. 

These settlements are not to be thought 
of as small farms, with careful tillage of the 
soil, like the farms of Iowa and Wisconsin, 
for example, but as resembling rather the 
ranch farms of Texas. Gardens and or- 
chards, of course, will be cultivated in the 
vicinity of the trading and military posts, 
for the better welfare of the inhabitants ; 
and there are prospects of some of the more 
7 



98 The German Empire 

fertile sites along the valley slopes being 
turned into vineyards and tobacco planta- 
tions. But the main occupation of the 
settlers must be cattle breeding for long 
years to come. 

Southwest Africa has a paradisiacal cli- 
mate; nothing can surpass it. Although 
the land lies two-thirds in the Tropic Zone, 
and only one-third in the Temperate 
Zone, the local configuration is such that 
the temperature is everywhere moderate, 
except in the district of Cunene and a few 
inland sections. The air of the broad, 
upland plains is pure and dry, and the 
juicy verdure is encouraged into luxuriant 
growth by the brilliance of the southern 
sun. Alternating with the heat of the 
day is a coolness of the night which bene- 
fits both man and beast alike. Hoar-frost 
is no infrequent occurrence, and heavy 
dews form during all the dry season. The 
rainy season falls in December and Jan- 
uary, and brings showers that fill the beds 
of the rivers full to their brims. In sum- 
mer the lower streams dry up, but the 
water courses under the sand at no great 



in Africa. 99 

depth, and breaks out wherever there is a 
rift, making puddles and small ponds. 
Irrigation is an easy task, and, whenever 
it shall be applied on a large scale, will 
transform vast tracts of waste land into 
pasture grounds. 

As to that one great drawback of the 
country, the so-called rinderpest, it is al- 
ready being overcome. Applied science 
is sure to put an end to the plague and 
further infection from it. 

Less likelihood exists of the province 
getting rid of the moral hindrances which 
the bureaucratic disposition of the Gov- 
ernment is laying constantly in the way of 
its free development. I reckon among 
these the systematic attempt which is kept 
up to exclude Boers from the country. 
Is it from an apprehension of their spread- 
ing a spirit of Republican independence 
therein? The Boers are, indeed, intract- 
able in their half-civilised devotion to the 
idea of political liberty ; but, at the same 
time, they compose the best conceivable 
material for what may be termed a colo- 
nising plant. They are industrious, tern- 



loo The German Empire 

perate, tough in body, and, above all, 
experienced particulady in just those 
things which pertain to South African 
farming and cattle raising. It is the very 
element which is needed by Germany to 
aid in settling its new African lands. 

The present deprivation which the Gov- 
ernment's action lays upon the colony, 
however, is not the only one ; still more 
to be regretted is likely to be the future 
consequences that must flow from neglect 
of Boer good will and welfare. The 
struggle between the Dutch and English 
in South Africa would be accelerated to 
an end, if a power like Germany afforded 
open aid to the Dutch. At present the 
Boers wish to become neither German nor 
English ; but they will be unable to resist 
subjection in the long run of time; and 
as natural affinity will draw them ulti- 
mately to the lap of Germany, the better 
will it be for the Germans, the more wide- 
spread and prosperous they have become. 
The Government ought to leave no stone 
unturned to encourage its subjects to try 
to understand and appreciate the peculiar 



in Africa. loi 

ways and opinions of the Boers. The 
future of the white race in Africa depends 
upon the rapidity with which a mutual 
understanding between the two Teutonic 
branches of it can be developed. 

The German Government may be 
brought to perceive this, and to let minor 
political considerations drop into abey- 
ance, in order to adjust its policy in ac- 
cordance with the one great question at 
stake. But at present its task appears to 
be to seek colonial aggrandisement /^r se ; 
it is even emulating Great Britain in en- 
couraging colonial commerce, all of which 
is a great step in advance beyond its 
former indifference to matters colonial. 
The final comprehensive grasp of the sub- 
ject of African colonisation, however, from 
the point of view of the political future 
is still wanting. At least no evidences 
of such grasp of the subject are visible 
as yet to men working in Africa. 

In conclusion, a word may be added in 
respect to railways in the German African 
provinces. In East Africa a road extends 
from Tanga to Korogwe, and will be carried 



I02 The German Empire 

to the Kilimanjaro. Two other roads are 
planned, one from Dar-es-Salaam through 
Usaramo, Ukami, Usagara to the Victoria 
Nyanza, another from Rufiji to the Pan- 
gani Falls. 

In Southwest Africa there is a railway 
from Swakopmund to Windhoek. 



THE FRENCH EMPIRE 
IN AFRICA. 



THE FRENCH EMPIRE IN 
AFRICA, 

BY M. PAUL GUIEYSSE, 
Deputy and Ex-Minister of the Colonies. 

TWENTY years ago Stanley de- 
scended the Kongo, and thus 
opened its immense basin to European 
cupidity. The carving up of the Black 
Continent has nearly been completed, 
though its consequences may still give 
rise to many discussions. But the sphere 
of action of each of the invading nations is 
now clearly traced, and the difficulties that 
spring up from time to time are due to a 
narrow sentiment and a misunderstanding 
of true economic interests, which lead to 
an attempt to substitute artificial limits for 
rational and natural ones. 

The present century has witnessed the 
geographical conquest of Africa. To 
speak only of the northern regions, which 
are naturally subject to French influence, 



io6 The French Empire 

it may be recalled that a Frenchman, 
Caille, was the first to penetrate, in 1828, 
into mysterious Timbuktu. At the same 
moment Clapperton, the Scotchman, dis- 
covered Lake Tchad and Sokoto, while 
Bath, in 1850, and Nachtigal, in 1869, 
explored the regions of the middle Niger 
to Lake Tchad, and thence to the Nile. 
Lenz reached Timbuktu in 1880, and 
Flatters, following out the plans of Duvey- 
rier, fell before the attacks of the Tuaregs, 
while striving to connect Algeria with the 
Sudan. The grand divisions of North 
Africa were settled. The French expedi- 
tions into the basin of the Upper Niger 
were about to begin and to continue with- 
out interruption down to the present day 
by the joining of the Sudan with Dahomey, 
while a mission, under the command of 
Captain Marchand, connected the French 
posts on the Kongo and the Ubangi with 
the Nile. 

France is one of the earliest nations 
established on the western coast of Africa. 
The Dieppe factories there rival those of 
Portugal as regards age. As early as 



in Africa, 107 

1626, the Senegal region attracted the 
traders of Normandy, one of whose com- 
panies bought the islet, situated at the 
mouth of the Senegal River, which be- 
came St. Louis. Under Louis XIV. the 
Royal Company took possession of the 
whole coast, stretching from the Bay of 
Arguin to Goree, and these territories 
were declared to belong to France by the 
Treaty of Nimeguen. Trade in gums, 
hides, and ivory brought good returns. 
But the European traders w^ere stationed 
only along the coasts ; as was the case in 
fact, till recent years, all the way to Gabun. 
A few small fortified store-houses sufficed 
to protect the traders against the treachery 
of the native chiefs. 

In 1697 ^h^ Governor of Senegal, Andre 
Brue, went up the river, entered into ne- 
gotiations with the chiefs along the banks, 
and concluded with them treaties of com- 
merce and friendship. But the wars in 
Europe caused the colony to fall into 
the hands of the English, who lost it, re- 
took it, but, finally, ceded it to France in 
the general peace of 1815. It was not till 



io8 The French Empire 

1854 that the enterprise began by Andre 
Brue could be taken up seriously by 
the real creator of Senegal, General 
Faidherbe. 

The inhabitants of the region belonged 
to various races. On the right bank were 
the Trarza Moors, an almost white race, 
mingled with half-breeds and blacks, one 
of the results of slavery. Successive trea- 
ties had succeeded in getting them to 
abandon the few settlements which they 
had on the left bank. An agricultural 
and pastoral people, their interests com- 
manded them to live in peace with us. 
On the left bank and in the upper valley 
were pressed together the Puis or Fulahs, 
of a dark red hue, who came from the 
East and who were shepherds and mer- 
chants ; the Toucouleurs, half-breeds, 
farmers for the most part ; and many 
negroes, pushed back by the Puis, and 
with no definite past history, but under 
Mohammedan influence, either through 
force or simply through contact, and, like 
the Toucouleurs, given up to fetichism. 
The Woloffs were in majority in these 



in Africa. 109 

negro races. They are the most intelli- 
gent and are very good labourers, so that 
there is every reason for us to cultivate 
their good will. 

The most profound peace now reigns 
through this region, with no danger of its 
being broken, and, consequently, prosper- 
ity is increasing daily. The railroad from 
St. Louis to Dakar passes through fertile 
fields where scarcely two years ago mili- 
tary acts of repression were necessary. 
But when Faidherbe wished to proceed to 
the occupation of Upper Senegal, he had 
first to break the power at Medina, of the 
Toucouleur Marabout, El Hadji Homar, 
whose empire extended from Lake Tchad 
to Senegal, and who, by terrorising and 
fanaticising the inhabitants, hoped to be 
able to push us back into the sea. 

Since then the advance of French in- 
fluence in those regions has been more 
or less rapid, but always continuous. The 
negro empires rise up in a night, and melt 
away quite as quickly. Based on the 
momentary pow^r and ascendency of a 
Marabout, they disappear with him. The 



no The French Empire 

grand influence of Timbuktu, which was 
once exerted over the whole upper and 
middle region of the Niger basin, had a 
solid reason for its existence ; for the geo- 
graphical position of the city made it the 
commercial centre of all the surrounding 
regions, and causes it to survive its politi- 
cal renown which exists no longer. The 
Empire of Ahmadon, son of El Hadji 
Homar, was no exception to the general 
rule. 

The expeditions of Borgnis-Desbordes, 
Gallieni, and Archinard pushed back, but 
not without considerable difficulty because 
of the feeble means at their disposal, the 
bands of pillagers and devastators occupy- 
ing the right bank of the Niger. The 
last of these chiefs, who exists only by 
terrorising and massacring the inoffensive 
inhabitants, is Samory, who has recently 
won such an unenviable reputation by 
betraying and assassinating an officer sent 
to confer with him. He is now carrying 
on his operations on the confines of Sierra 
Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, being 
driven more and more into a corner. An 



in Africa. 1 1 1 

end must be put to this bandit, who yearly 
sacrifices a hundred thousand unfortunate 
beings in order that he may preserve his 
power. 

The Niger, once in our possession, and 
joined by a chain of forts and soon by a 
railroad to Senegal, the rather inaccessible 
region of Futa-Jallon, which was already 
under our protectorate, ought to become 
an annex of our possessions. This is 
now the case. Senegal is connected di- 
rectly with our colony on the Ivory Coast. 
The settling of the boundaries with the 
little English and Portuguese colonies of 
Gambia, which are little else than indent- 
ures into our territories, and especially 
with Sierra Leone and Liberia, has now 
been brought about by definite treaties, 
so that France is at last free to advance 
into the Upper Niger region by way of 
Senegal, or by the new route in process 
of construction, which starts at Konakry, 
on the coast, and passes along the Futa- 
Jallon country. 

The Upper Niger, which resembles the 
Nile in its periodic and fertilising over- 



112 The French Empire 

flows, waters a wonderfully rich region 
inhabited by peaceable dwellers who ask 
only to live in quiet and security, and who 
could promptly repair the evils caused 
by the devastators from whom we have 
delivered them. This region, which is 
within our reach, has a great future before 
it. This is proved by the whole history 
of Timbuktu, of which we have lately 
come into possession without any resist- 
ance ; in fact, with the complicity of its 
inhabitants, whom we have thus delivered 
from the tyranny of the Tuaregs. 

Timbuktu is on the confines of the 
desert, and the great commercial centre 
for all the products brought there by the 
camel caravans and other means of trans- 
port of the neighbouring or distant tribes. 
Though its trade has considerably fallen 
off, it is rapidly picking up again, — a 
trade which, at the beginning of the pres- 
ent century was still valued at more than 
twenty million dollars annually. The 
security which it will now enjoy under 
France will soon restore to the town its 
old importance. 



in Africa. 113 



The chief scourge of the Sahara and 
at the same time the conductors of the 
Timbuktu caravans are the Tuaregs, who 
are beginning to feel their dependence 
on us since our discovery of the grand 
reservoir lakes which play for the Niger 
the same part — in fact, a still more impor- 
tant one — that the ancient Lake Moeris 
did for the Nile. The important town 
of Bassikunu, which these lakes separate 
from Timbuktu, has just been taken pos- 
session of, and the vast region of which 
it is the capital has become our territory. 
This whole country is destined to enjoy 
a wonderful future, provided peace can be 
preserved, so that it becomes the interest 
and duty of France to protect the inhabi- 
tants against all incursions which, in fact, 
are becomins: more and more rare. 

The Niger region has become an object 

of cupidity to all the nations which had, 

but a short time ago, simple trading posts 

along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. 

The destruction of the bloody despots of 

Dahomey and Ashanti, by France and 

England, has been an inestimable benefit 
8 



114 The French Empire 

to all the peaceable peoples of the interior. 
But France occupies a preponderant posi- 
tion in these regions. By means of her 
Ivory Coast Colony her possessions ex- 
tend to the Kongo States, traversed a few 
years ago for the first time by Binger, 
and which are the centre of the campaign 
against Samory. Our frontier line on 
the west, in the direction of Liberia and 
Sierra Leone, has been fixed by treaties, 
and on the east, where lie the English 
Gold Coast Colony and the German 
Togo, a few concessions have brought 
about a similar result; so that we are 
now in complete possession of all the 
territory lying between these colonies and 
the course of the Niger. The actual oc- 
cupation of these lands was brought about 
only a few months ago. Scarcely had 
Lieutenant Hourst of our navy accom- 
plished the whole descent of the Niger, 
than the expeditions which had started 
simultaneously from the Sudan and Da- 
homey, under Lieutenant Voulet and 
Captain Baud, effected a junction, after 
having established posts in all the princi- 



in Africa. 115 

pal centres of the Niger region. But 
one point remains unsettled, — fixing the 
northern boundary of French Dahomey 
between that colony and the English 
Lagos. This is in fact " the Niger ques- 
tion," which is now occupying the atten- 
tion of the French and English Foreign 
Offices. 

While Stanley was finishing the general 
exploration of the Kongo, and the King 
of the Belgians was bringing about the 
formation of the Independent Kongo 
State, Brazza, going up the course of the 
Ogove, reached by the Alima, an affluent 
of the Kongo, Stanley Pool, where he 
founded Brazzaville. This was the origin 
of the French Kongo State, which is in 
communication with Lake Tchad by the 
navigable river Shari and with the Nile 
by the Bahr-el-Ghazal. 

The important results which the future 
has in store for this part of Africa, and 
the grave differences arising on every 
side, caused the bringing together of the 
Berlin Congress, which regulated these 
various difficulties. One of the principal 



ii6 The French Empire 

of these decisions was the proclamation 
of the free navigation of the Kongo and 
Niger Rivers, and a declaration that a 
tax must be levied on all nations alike 
which used these rivers, these moneys to 
be employed for the general expenses of 
administration, etc. France gave her full 
consent to this regulation, and it is the 
realisation of this stipulation that she 
firmly demands to-day in the case of the 
Niger. 

The course of the Niger is interrupted 
at Bussa, north of Dahomey, by rapids 
which render navigation very difficult. 
Furthermore, the claims — I may almost 
say, the reprehensible acts — of the Royal 
Niger Company have rendered access to 
the river almost impossible for Europeans. 
France has unfortunately shown, in the 
treatment of this affair, a feebleness or a 
negligence which is greatly to be re- 
gretted, and which does but little credit 
to our diplomacy. The abandonment of 
the Mizon Mission at Yola, on the Upper 
Binue, south of Lake Tchad, and of the 
Aremberg post created by Toutee, on 



in Africa. 117 

the right bank of the Niger below Bussa, 
were acts of culpable condescension to 
England. 

During the past year these faults have 
been partly repaired by the arrival at 
Bussa of Lieutenant Bretonnet, of the 
French Navy, who has been received in 
a friendly manner by the Chief of that 
region. It is absolutely indispensable 
that we hold this town in order that the 
French Niger region may have a practi- 
cable communication with the sea. At 
this moment a commission is settling the 
question of the boundary line between 
Dahomey and Lagos. France cannot 
abandon the results obtained by Decoeur, 
Toutee, Bellot, and so many other of her 
noble sons. France and England will 
not fall out over details; but w^e occupy 
those regions legally, by treaties with the 
native chiefs and, effectively, by the plant- 
ing there of our standard. It will be 
dangerous for the English to disturb us. 
We have yielded too often to English 
pretensions. When we decide to speak 
to England in a firm tone, especially when 



II 8 The French Empire 

we have justice on our side, she will have 
to give way.^ 

To sum up the situation in the Niger 
region, it may be said that this magnifi- 
cent result may now be considered accom- 
plished ; the whole vast territory is French 
up to the recognised limits of the foreign 
colonies. There is but one shadow in the 
picture, Samory, who cannot, however, 
hold out much longer. He once disposed 
of, prosperity will then reign, without seri- 
ous danger of any interruption, through- 
out these five districts, which ask only 
to be left to live in peace under our pro- 
tectorate, and whose intelligent inhabi- 
tants appreciate with feelings of real joy 
our gentle influence. 

Quite other are the peoples over whom 
France rules in her Kongo State. There 
begin the regions which, along with those 
of Guinea, were so long the inexhaustible 
source whence were drawn the slaves for 
the Antilles and America ; and the re- 
ports of Speke, Burton, Livingstone, and 
others have shown at the price of what 

1 See note on p. 32. 



in Africa. 119 

monstrous cruelties and massacres the 
trading Arabs, who exploited the eastern 
part, obtained the slaves necessary for the 
transporting of ivory and other merchan- 
dise. It was none too soon for the Bel- 
gians and French, who occupy the whole 
basin of the Kongo, to put an end to this 
horrible state of things. The way of pro- 
ceeding of the two nations is quite differ- 
ent, for while we hear too often of conflicts 
and revolts in the Free State, it may be 
permitted to point out that France has 
only a few hundred Senegalian soldiers 
on the Kongo and its chief affluent, the 
Ubangi. 

The first tribes one meets in these 
Kongo regions on leaving the coast are 
genuine savages, always at war with one 
another, often cannibals, but who can be 
easily managed if strict rules of justice 
and equity are observed. The men are 
good only as carriers and paddlers, and 
are as yet incapable of performing regular 
labour. But this can be changed by a 
slow and continual effort on our part. 
The farther you recede from the coast, 



I20 The French Empire 

greater and greater becomes the primitive 
barbarity. But when, by the Shari River, 
which empties into Lake Tchad, and along 
whose waters float our steam-launches, 
or by the Ubangi, you approach the dis- 
tricts under Mussulman influence, the 
situation improves. 

In passing around Lake Tchad, whose 
western and southern shores are partly 
within the zone of the influence of the 
English of the Niger and of the Germans 
of Kamerun, the French possessions are 
found to be brought into contact with 
the Sudanese or rather Saharian regions, 
great stretches of territory which are 
often but deserts, and whose rare inhabi- 
tants, the Tuaregs, still inspire great fear. 
By the Ubangi River one reaches the 
States of the Sultans Rafai and Zemio, 
with whom we are on friendly terms on 
account of our common interests. In 
giving them our support, we enable them 
to exert an influence over those confused 
masses who participate in the Mahdist 
movement and to resist them. It was 
throueh the aid of Zemio that Marchand 



in Africa. lai 

was able to reach the basin of the Bahr- 
el-Ghazal, to descend one of its water- 
courses, and at this moment, doubtless, 
gunboats, flying the French flag, float on 
the Nile at Fashoda. Abyssinia is not 
far away. It must not be forgotten that 
the Harrar Railroad, whose construction 
is begun, and whose prolongation toward 
the interior is simply a matter of time, 
starts from our possessions of Djibouti, 
on the Gulf of Tadjurah, at the entrance 
to the Red Sea. It is unnecessary to 
dwell on the consequences to Egypt and 
the Egyptian provinces of the Upper Nile 
which will spring from this road. 

Nothing need be said of Algeria and 
Tunis, as they are under a regular admin- 
istration, and, in this respect, may almost 
be classed among European nations. It 
must be admitted, however, that there 
always exists the danger in those regions 
of a revolt, due to Mussulman fanaticism, 
which has grown all the more arrogant as 
a result of the shameful feebleness of what 
is called oddly enough "the Concert of 
Europe." Tottering Morocco, which is 



122 The French Empire 

kept standing only because of the rival- 
ries between the Powers, may play at any 
moment an important part in a general 
uprising, which would spread as far as 
Tripoli. But the farther France pene- 
trates into the Sahara, occupying new 
oases and making fresh treaties with the 
Tuaregs, who are so hard to win over, but 
who can be depended upon having once 
given their word, the greater is the prob- 
ability of obtaining in these northern 
parts of Africa a state of stability and 
security. When one has to do with reli- 
gious fanaticism, force alone must be 
counted upon. By showing that a revolt 
will be repressed without pity, a check 
may be put to a movement for the starting 
of one. 

As regards the great island of Mada- 
gascar, it stands so without Africa proper 
that I simply mention it here in passing. 
It is a world apart. 

Will the French know how to make 
the most of the vast domain which is now 
open to them in the Black Continent ? 
The changes at present going on in the 



in Africa. 123 

French public mind are happily very 
significant. Colonial expansion in this 
country was checked by the wars of the 
Revolution and the Empire. But a move- 
ment in that direction has now most 
decidedly set in again. Just as under the 
ancient regime the younger sons of noble 
families sought their fortune in foreign 
parts, so now the children of the bour- 
geoisie, not being able to find occupations 
at home, are beginning to turn their faces 
toward the colonies. May my fellow- 
countrymen recover that old spirit of 
initiative, and renew that early taste for 
colonisation which produced such brilliant 
results, always bearing in mind that it 
was not Frenchmen who lost their colo- 
nies, but the miserable governments which 
they too long permitted to exist. 



THE INDEPENDENT KONGO 
STATE. 



THE INDEPENDENT KONGO 
STATE. 

BY LIEUT. CHARLES LEMAIRE, 

Ex-Commissioner of the Equator District of the Kongo State. 

THE astonishing creation of a vast 
free State, which has, in twenty 
years, completely changed the greatest 
river basin of the world, till then pro- 
foundly buried in darkness and barbarism, 
and made it a land of order and civilisa- 
tion, — this astounding transformation is 
due to the will of a single man. Before 
mounting the Belgian throne, the then 
Duke de Brabant, in a volume entitled 
"The Complement of the Work of 1830," 
pointed out in the most elevated language 
the necessity for Belgians to have a colony 
beyond the seas. Become King, this 
same prince, Leopold H, now sovereign 
of the Independent Kongo State, turned 
his attention forthwith toward carrying 
out this dream of many years. 



128 The Independent 

In 1876 the King brought together in 
his palace the Brussels Geographical 
Congress, composed of well-known men 
of learning, geographers, and explorers of 
all nations. This was the origin of the 
International African Society, whose aim 
was to create an uninterrupted chain of 
stations from the eastern coast to the 
great lakes discovered by Livingstone. 
This meant the penetrating into equa- 
torial Africa from the east, as all attempts 
from the west had failed. 

The best known of these expeditions 
from the west was that placed by the 
English Admiralty under the orders of 
Capt. James K. Tuckey. In 18 16 Tuckey 
went up the Kongo to a distance of some 
170 miles, but lost eighteen men in four 
months, which seemed to check further 
attempts in that direction. 

On August 9th, 1877, a man arrived at 
the mouth of the Kongo and said : *' It 
is now 999 days since I left Zanzibar. I 
have seen all the lands known to the 
Arabs of the East, and during 281 days 
I have traversed countries which no white 



Kongo State. 129 

man ever saw before. I have sailed along 
over 1,500 miles of a wonderful river, and, 
by making a detour of some 150 miles, 
I have been able to pass around forty 
cataracts." 

The man who told this wonderful tale 
was Stanley, who had thus completed the 
discoveries of Livingstone, and who, in 
order to solve the problem of the Kongo, 
which could not be approached from the 
west, had taken it at the other end and 
had descended from Nyangwe to Banana, 
telling of his thirty-two fights which he 
had had with cannibals along the un- 
known river, of the seven equatorial cat- 
aracts (to-day Stanley Falls), of the 
thirty-two falls, of terrible privations, 
deaths, massacres, etc. 

For the third time Africa had now 
been crossed from the Orient to the Occi- 
dent. After Livingstone and Cameron, 
Stanley had traversed those regions 
marked on the maps as terra incognita. 
Doubtless an enthusiastic welcome awaited 
the brave adventurer. Not at all. Europe 
pretended to see in Stanley signs of an 
9 



130 The Independent 

impostor, and mistrusted him. But he 
inspired confidence in the King of the 
Belgians, and from this confidence was to 
spring the future State of Kongo. 

In 1873, at the suggestion and under 
the auspices of Leopold II, the Committee 
for the Study of the Upper Kongo was 
formed. Its purpose was to do on the 
West Coast what the International Afri- 
can Society was endeavouring to accom- 
plish on the East Coast. This new 
organisation also determined to foster 
commercial development, which is the 
best way to get into contact with the 



negroes. 



An expedition, whose aim was the 
study of this whole question in detail and 
on the spot, was immediately organised 
and placed under the orders of Stanley, 
who, in 1879, again appeared at the mouth 
of the Kongo, and set to work to perform 
the duties assigned him. These duties 
were to examine into the navigability of 
the river and its affluents, to enter into 
peaceful commercial and political rela- 
tions with the natives, to secure territorial 



Kongo State. 131 

concessions, to establish posts, conclude 
treaties, to learn what were the exploit- 
able riches of the region, to decide what 
lines of artificial communication could be 
opened, and particularly to find out if it 
would be possible to link, by means of a 
railroad, the Atlantic Coast with the river 
system of Central Africa. This pro- 
gramme reveals the long-cherished dream 
of Leopold II, — the desire to create an out- 
let for the industrial activity of his people, 
to spread the benefits of civilisation by 
means of commerce and labour, and to 
found, without the effusion of blood which 
characterised earlier conquests in Africa, 
a grand, rich colony that, later, could be 
handed over to Belgium. 

Full of enthusiasm, Belgian officers 
begged to join the expedition, and, accom- 
panied by them, Stanley sailed up the 
noble river and its branches, making 
treaties and dropping along its banks his 
agents, whom he inflamed with his own 
enterprising ardour. And in the foot- 
steps of these bold pioneers followed 
missionaries, scientists, merchants, and, 



132 The Independent 

curiously enough, even tourists, some of 
whom were so filled with enthusiasm for 
the enterprise that they asked to be al- 
lowed to share its dangers and hardships 
alongside of the Belgians. Such, for in- 
stance, was Lieutenant Mohun, U. S. A., 
consular agent, charged by his Govern- 
ment with a mission to the Kongo, who 
made this whole campaign. 

In the end the decisive results obtained 
by this Stanley expedition led the Com- 
mittee for the Study of the Upper Kongo 
to transform itself into an International 
Kongo Association, so that the newly 
explored territories could be brought 
under a strong and independent adminis- 
tration, emanating from a duly established 
authority, recognised as such by the prin- 
cipal nations of the world. 

Toward the end of 1883, the Inter- 
national Kongo Association had in its 
possession more than 10,000 treaties 
signed by the native chiefs, who volun- 
tarily ceded their sovereign rights over 
the lands which they occupied. While 
continuing its active work in Africa, the 



Kongo State. 133 

Association entered into diplomatic rela- 
tions with the Great Powers, in order to 
obtain from them the recognition of its 
sovereignty in the Kongo basin, and the 
enjoyment of the immunities and pre- 
rogatives of a State. The United States 
was first, on April loth, 1884, to recognise 
the new State, and, seven months later, 
the German Empire followed this good 
example. 

On November 15th, 1884, opened the 
Conference of Berlin, assembled to regu- 
late, in a spirit of mutual amity, " the con- 
ditions which should assure the develop- 
ment of commerce on the Kongo and 
prevent contentions and misunderstand- 
ings." This memorable conference traced 
the limits of the conventional basin of 
the Kongo, indicated what the economic 
legislation should be for its government, 
declared its neutrality, that it should 
be under the protection of nations, that 
free navigation and liberty of conscience 
should be assured, that the slave-trade 
should be prohibited, and finally decided 
that, " in order to protect the native popu- 



134 The Independent 

lation from the evils of war, all serious 
differences concerning the limits, or within 
the limits, of the territories designated by 
the conference should be submitted to the 
mediation of one or several Governments." 

During the sittings of the Conference, 
most European nations, imitating the ex- 
ample set by the United States and Ger- 
many, recognised the sovereignty of the 
International Kongo Association, and the 
Association itself having, on February 
26th, 1885, adhered to the resolutions 
promulgated by the Conference, Prince 
Bismarck closed the assembly with a 
speech in w^hich he expressed best wishes 
for the prosperity of the new State. 

But a ruler for the State was necessary. 
The Berlin Conference had unanimously 
proposed Leopold II. Thereupon the 
Belgian Parliament authorised the King 
to accept the new sovereignty by declar- 
ing that "the union between Belgium and 
the new State will be an exclusively per- 
sonal one." The Government was then 
immediately organised, and in July, 1885, 
the constitution of the Kongo State was 



Kongo State. 135 

proclaimed at Banana and at all the sta- 
tions of the interior districts. In August 
of the same year Leopold notified all the 
Powers of the creation of the Independent 
Kongo State and that he had become its 
ruler. The declaration of neutrality im- 
mediately followed, and the State was 
thus definitely founded. 

By this time Stanley had, by the aid 
of three little steamers, got up the river 
as high as Stanley Falls, and had explored 
several of its affluents, while still others 
were explored by his successors, so that 
there could be no longer any doubt as to 
what there was in that great white blank 
found on even the latest maps at that 
time. It had been learned that at some 
200 miles from Matadi, which the great 
ocean steamers could reach, spread out 
an incomparable river system, some 20,000 
miles of whose banks, accessible to steam- 
ers, had been visited. The world now 
knows that this immense basin was a 
hundred times larger than Belgium, that 
it was once a vast fresh-water lake, which 
buried for a time the fecundity of the 



136 The Independent 

submerged soil ; that this great plain was 
virgin, waiting for a comer ; that it was 
covered with the richest of tropical vege- 
tation, and was cut up by a network of 
navigable waters, the like of which could 
be found, probably, nowhere else on the 
globe, — for there is no point on it more 
than sixty miles from a river-bank; that 
the region was peopled with millions of 
negroes, those incomparable labourers of 
the tropics. 

But Stanley declared to all who would 
listen that the full possibilities of the 
region could be realised only through the 
instrumentality of a railway which should 
connect Matadi with Leopoldville. He 
further stated that no other road was 
necessary unless one wished to reach the 
most distant confines of Central Africa 
and to pass from the basin of the Kongo 
into that of the Tchad, the Nile, and the 
Zambezi. Thereupon came to the aid of 
the King daring men who promised to 
build the road from the ocean to Stanley 
Pool. Nothing daunted them, — neither 
numerous deaths, the continual disap- 



Kongo State, 137 

pointments at the start, nor the unmerited 
attacks of low politicians. So from 1889, 
the year when the work began in Matadi, 
until the present moment, the gigantic 
labour has gone on, so slowly at first that 
even the most sanguine lost heart, then 
faster and faster, till finally the whistle 
of the first locomotive from Matadi reached 
Stanley Pool and was answered by the 
whistles of the steamers on the Upper 
Kongo. This memorable event happened 
at the moment I was writing these lines ; 
and I can easily imagine the emotion it 
must have occasioned in the hearts of 
the white men assembled on that occasion 
from every part of the Pool. 

Under the pressure of political parties, 
the Belgian Government, which had ac- 
corded to the Kongo Railway undertak- 
ing a certain amount of pecuniary support, 
was forced to send out in 1895 a technical 
commission charged with drawing up a 
report on the condition of the work al- 
ready finished or under way, on the possi- 
bility of completing the whole enterprise, 
and on the amount of traffic which would 



138 The Independent 

probably occur on the line. This com- 
mission, which was extremely cautious in 
its statements, reported that the work on 
the road was well done, that the roll- 
ing stock was well made and properly 
mounted, that the trains ran regularly, 
that the whole labour could be finished 
by the end of 1900, and that the road 
could do an annual business amounting 
to 30,000 tons' weight. But the fact is 
that the road will be ready from one end 
to the other and inaugurated this coming 
May, thus requiring half the time for 
completion stated by the commission, 
while the engineers now declare that it 
can easily handle 60,000 tons of merchan- 
dise annually. 

While the railway was being finished, 
European establishments of one kind and 
another began to spring up on all sides. 
Trees supplanted brushwood. From year 
to year new steamboats, carried up over- 
land, piece by piece on the backs of men, 
w^ere put together on the Upper Kongo. 
Commercial agencies were set up on every 
hand, while Catholic and Protestant mis- 



Kongo State. 139 

sionaries divided the country among them 
up as high as Tanganyika. 

A few figures will give a more striking 
and exact idea of the present situation on 
the Kongo. There are now forty-five 
steamers constantly plying on the waters 
of the Upper Kongo and its afiluents, 
transporting merchandise, food, and troops, 
thus carrying life and progress every- 
where. It is true that the largest of them 
are of only forty-five tons burden, for, as 
has already been said, they had to be 
brought up from the coast on the backs 
of men. But now, thanks to the railway, 
a steamer of 250 tons has reached the 
Pool, where it will be at work in two 
months more. Another of the same capa- 
city is now being built at Antwerp, and 
will join its sister in due time. 

What do these steamers carry.? All 
those products collected since the four- 
teenth century till now only along the 
coasts of Africa, — ivory, gums, resin, wax, 
incense, ostrich feathers, pepper, coffee, 
cocoa, tobacco, cotton, rubber, skins, oils, 
indigo, fruits, animals of various kinds, 



140 The Independent 

etc. To give an idea of what may be 
exported from the Kongo, I may state 
that the coffee and cocoa fields planted 
only in 1891 now contain 1,500,000 coffee 
plants and 200,000 cocoa plants. Not 
100 pounds of rubber was exported in 
1885, whereas not less than 3,000,000 
pounds were extracted from the forests 
of the Upper Kongo in 1896, valued at 
$1,500,000. In 1897 these figures were 
doubled, and coming years will see them 
still further increased. It is not aston- 
ishing, therefore, that Antwerp tends to 
become for rubber — as it is already for 
ivory — the most important market in the 
world. The following table showing, in 
round numbers, the trade of the Kongo 
Independent State, speaks for itself: 



Year. 


Imports. 


Exports. 


Totals. 


1893 . - 


. . $2,029,700 


$1,503,000 


^3.532,700 


1894 . . 


. . 2,371,000 


2,206,000 


4>577»ooo 


1895 • ■ 


. . 2,368,000 


2,427,000 


4,795,000 


1896 . . 


. . 3,208,000 


3,012,000 


6,222,000 



The figures for 1897 are not yet given out, 
but it is known that the total surpasses 
$7,000,000. 



Kongo State. 141 

A few more figures : In 189 1 the Kongo 
budget was, in round numbers, $911,000. 
In 1898 it is $3,450,000, with a growing 
tendency to balance. The number of 
Europeans on the Kongo is 1,600, of 
whom 150 are Catholic missionaries and 
250 Protestant missionaries. These mis- 
sionaries occupy some hundred missions 
scattered over the whole territory, and 
nobody denies the good they are doing. 
Among the more important religious es- 
tablishments should be particularly men- 
tioned the Colonial School, where the 
State receives abandoned children, and 
gives them professional and agricultural 
instruction. 

Order is preserved by a remarkable 
colonial force, whose soldiers are at the 
same time labourers. This body, which in 
1889 contained only iii natives, now has 
enrolled 12,000, of whom 8,000 are mili- 
tiamen and 4,000 volunteers. There are 
properly constituted courts in all the chief 
centres, and post-offices all the way to Tan- 
ganyika. A telegraphic line is being built 
from Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls. Lines 



142 The Independent 

for new railways are being examined, so 
that in the near future roads will run to 
the Nile in one direction, and to Tan- 
ganyika and Nyassa in the other. Well- 
fitted-out scientific expeditions are study- 
ing all the unexplored regions. 

Such, rapidly told, is the present condi- 
tion of the Kongo State, whose participa- 
tion at the Brussels Exhibition last year 
produced a sensation in Europe. The 
preparations for the Paris Exhibition of 
1900 are already underway on the Kongo, 
and on that occasion Europe will, I feel 
sure, again proclaim that the constitution 
and development of the Kongo State is, 
and will remain, one of the brightest jew- 
els of the Belgian crown. An uninter- 
rupted series of successes of a scientific, 
economic, moral, and military nature ; the 
bringing within the boundaries of civili- 
sation the whole heart of Africa; the 
suppression throughout this immense ter- 
ritory of those cruel bands that used to 
send to European markets ivory stolen 
through the blood of men, and to Eastern 
harems violated orphans ; the establish- 



Kongo State. 143 

ment of order, justice, labour; the faith 
revealed to millions of human beings, — 
such are some of the results attained by 
the Kongo State. 

The black population of the Kongo 
basin is estimated to be 30,000,000 souls. 
The Belgians have undertaken the task 
to act as their educators, for the climate 
will not permit the white man to labour 
uninterruptedly on the Kongo. He can 
only direct others. The high table-lands 
of the Katanga, where the temperature is 
lower, can become the regions habitable 
by our race. At present Europeans must 
return home after a sojourn of two or 
three years in Africa. The number is 
continually increasing of those who go 
back for the fourth and fifth time. In a 
word, this distant colony has put fresh 
life into the Belgian nation, which was in 
danger of growing torpid after sixty years 
of peace. It needed this new venture to 
bring out once more its virile qualities. 



ENGLAND, THE SUDAN, 
AND FRANCE. 



lO 



ENGLAND, THE SUDAN, AND 
FRANCE. 

BY HENRY NORMAN, 

Editor of the London " Daily Chronicle." 

■T17HERE the Atbara flows into the 
^^ Nile, 1,530 miles from Cairo, 170 
miles from Khartum, savagery is making 
to-day its last attempt but one to with- 
stand civilisation in Egypt. The world 
is necessarily always interested in such 
conflicts ; but this one possesses far more 
than the usual significance of fights be- 
tween white men and black. Civilisation 
has never presented a higher form than 
the work of England in Egypt, and sav- 
agery has never assumed a more hideous 
aspect than in the Khalifa Abdullah and 
his Baggara horde. No history appeals 
more vividly to the imagination of man- 
kind than that upon which the Sphinx 
for so many centuries has "stared with 
mysterious, solemn, stony eyes ; " and no 



148 England, the Sudan, 

problem of to-day involves such incalcu- 
lable uncertainties and such colossal possi- 
bilities in the relations of all the European 
nations to one another as that connected 
with the present domination of Great 
Britain upon the Nile. All the elements 
of a thrilling world-melodrama are pres- 
ent, and the curtain rises to-day upon the 
last act. It is well at such a moment to 
cast a glance backward and forward. 

Everybody remembers how England 
came to occupy Egypt in 1882, in con- 
sequence of the rebelHon of Arabi ; how 
she invited France to join her, and how 
France declined ; how she then undertook 
the rehabilitation of Egypt single-handed ; 
how the Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed, first 
an Egyptian civil servant, then a slave- 
trader at his birthplace, Dongola, raised 
the Eastern Sudan in 1882, isolated the 
Austrian, Edward Schnitzler, otherwise 
Emin Pasha, in the Equatorial Provinces, 
seized El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, 
annihilated the Egyptian Army sent 
against him under Hicks Pasha in 1883, 
and finally captured Khartum and slew 



and France. 149 

Gordon in 1885, thus becoming undis- 
puted master of Upper Egypt. Hicks 
was doomed to destruction from the start. 
His *' army " was a rabble of cowardly 
Egyptians, sent to the front in chains. 
O'Donovan, of Merv, the brilliant corre- 
spondent of the " Daily News," said in his 
last letter that he should shortly be lying 
in the desert with " a spear-head as big as 
a shovel " through him, — a prophecy ful- 
filled to the letter. The mission of Gor- 
don had hardly better prospects. A man 
of heroic courage and singular virtue, in 
his relations with other men he could 
often hardly be described as sane. His 
personal momentary inspirations and in- 
tuitions constituted his rule of life, to the 
neglect of such mundane considerations 
as orders from his superiors and his ov/n 
undertakings. Sent formally "as a man 
of peace, on a mission of peace," and ofH- 
cially forewarned that he would not be 
supported by an armed force, he was not 
long at Khartum before he began tele- 
graphing minute instructions for an army 
to be sent to him ; and not only that, but 



150 England^ the Sudan, 

his own requests telegraphed in the morn- 
ing were cancelled by his despatches of 
the afternoon, till the authorities at Cairo 
were wholly at a loss to know what line of 
action to follow. He could have retired 
from Khartum when the situation was 
known to be hopeless ; and if he had 
taken ordinary precautions in keeping the 
military e^tceinte of Khartum in repair, he 
could have held out till the British relief 
expedition reached him. Ethically, his 
character commands profound respect ; 
but from another point of view, the story 
of his career, if ever British opinion permits 
it to be written, will materially modify the 
legend which has grown up around him. 
With his death, the Sudan lapsed into 
barbarism, wholly beyond the power of 
Egypt at that time to destroy. Lord Cro- 
mer (then Sir Evelyn Baring) settled down 
to the gigantic task of bringing back 
Egypt, ruined by the inconceivable ex- 
travagances of the Khedive Ismail, and 
sucked dry by the concession-hunters and 
scoundrelly parasites of every European 
nation, to solvency and military efficiency, 



and France. 151 

— a task greater and more brilliantly ac- 
complished than any of our time. Then 
Egypt ended at Wady Haifa. Beyond 
that was hell, the unimaginable horrors of 
which have only been fully revealed of 
late in the narratives of the Mahdi's es- 
caped prisoners, Ohrwalder and Slatin. 
Beyond Haifa was the little advanced post 
of Sarras ; and I well remember standing 
in its gate one morning in February, 1892, 
and, as I had just been present at manoeu- 
vres of the Egyptian Army, and had mar- 
velled at the transformation wrought by 
English officers out of the horde of human 
sheep, like those who had turned up their 
throats to the butchers of El Obeid, won- 
dering if the time had not come for the 
Egyptian flag and the Union Jack to ad- 
vance once more across the " Belly of 
Stones " in front of me, which divides 
Egypt from the Sudan. On my return I 
advocated taking the first step, writing as 
follows : — 

" There would be no need to strike the blow 
at once. A comparatively small addition need 
be made to the present Egyptian army to ena- 



152 England, the Sudan, 

ble an amply sufficient force to advance to 
Dongola, and hold that and the line of commu- 
nications with Wady Haifa. This single step 
would bring many waverers at once from the 
enemy. A pause then would enable that por- 
tion of the Sudan to settle down into peaceful 
development before another step was taken. 
Then a farther advance to the next most con- 
venient place might be easily, leisurely, and 
irresistibly made." ^ 

Four years passed ; but then the plan I 
had thus hoped to see was precisely fol- 
lowed. On March 13th, 1896, the Sirdar 
of the Egyptian Army, Sir Herbert Kitch- 
ener, was ordered by the British Govern- 
ment to retake Dongola; on September 
26th the Egyptian flag was raised upon 
the old Mudir's house there; the expedi- 
tion then stopped, and the British regi- 
ment returned to Cairo. On July 13th, 
1897, the advance was resumed ; Abu 
Hamed was taken on August 7th, and 
Berber occupied on September 8th. Kas- 
sala was ceded to Egypt by Italy on De- 
cember 25th, and three Dervish forts in 

^ " Contemporary Review," April, 1892. 



and France. 153 



the direction of Khartilm were captured 
immediately afterward. Two days ago 
(March 20th) the entire Egyptian and 
British force, the latter greatly strength- 
ened, marched again, and to-day it is 
probably fighting the Khalifa's forces un- 
der the Emirs Mahmud and Osman Digna 
on the Atbara River. The result needs 
no foretelling. 

The coming engagement has been de- 
scribed in the telegrams as a " decisive 
battle." This it cannot be ; the real battle 
will be at Omdurman, about the beginning 
of August. The present Dervish advance 
is due either to the Khalifa's increasing 
difficulty in finding food for his forces, or 
more probably to his defective informa- 
tion. He no doubt imagines that the ad- 
vancing force is a small column, chiefly 
composed of Egyptian troops, for whom 
he has a profound contempt, and whom 
he expects to cut to pieces by falling upon 
them suddenly, or to isolate by taking 
Berber in their rear. His main body will 
certainly not fight until it is attacked at 
Omdurman (Kharttlm, of course, was long 



154 England, the Sudan, 

ago abandoned, and is in ruins), which 
place he has been fortifying for a long 
time. On his side, the Sirdar will cer- 
tainly not advance farther until the Nile 
rises, when his transport can be by river, 
and the gunboats can lend him their tre- 
mendous aid. One steamer carries as 
much baggage and forage as a thousand 
camels. It is high Nile at Kharttlm in 
August, and the Sirdar's advance will be- 
gin about the middle of July. By that 
time the railway, now eighty miles north 
of Berber, will have reached the Nile just 
below the Atbara. If he does not ask 
for more white troops, the strength of his 
army will be approximately as follows : 
Six battalions of Egyptian infantry, six 
battalions of Sudanese infantry, seven 
squadrons of Egyptian cavalry, the Egyp- 
tian Camel Corps, 800 strong, and three 
field batteries of Egyptian artillery, — a 
total strength of about 10,000 men, all, of 
course, under British officers; one battal- 
ion each of the Warwickshire Regiment, 
the Lincolnshire Regiment, the Cameron 
Highlanders, and the Seaforth Highland- 



and France. 155 

ers, and a British battery of machine guns, 
— a total British force of about 3,500 men. 
Against him he will have an army of, per- 
haps, 60,000 Dervish troops, known to 
have not more than 12,000 rifles, com- 
posed partly of black soldiers, driven to 
battle at the point of the sword, but de- 
pending chiefly for its fighting strength 
upon the Baggara tribe. In former strug- 
gles he has had other formidable Arab 
tribes upon his side, — the Jaalin, the 
Hadendoa, and the Beni Amer; but these 
have now come over to the Egyptian flag, 
as their territories have been gradually 
reoccupied. Nobody but the Baggara 
Arabs fights for the Khalifa an hour after 
it is possible to escape from his ven- 
geance. These Baggaras, however, are 
among the most terrible foes in the 
world ; they are now at bay, and they 
will probably die almost to a man in de- 
fence of their last stronghold. Mr. E. F. 
Knight, the special correspondent of " The 
Times " in the Sudan, has recently given 
a striking picture of these men and their 
position. He says : — 



156 England, the Sudan, 

" Whatever the Baggara may have been in 
former days, these last fifteen years of indul- 
gence in unbridled cruelty and rapine have 
made of them a race of men apart, more like 
wild beasts, indeed, than men, the enemies of 
mankind. Sullenly ferocious, having no joy 
save in slaughter, they seem to have lost the 
attributes of human nature. They are devoid 
of all affection for their wives, who are to them 
of far less account than their cattle. As our 
surgeons who have tended their wounded in 
hospital can testify, the Baggara, unlike others 
of our Dervish foemen, have absolutely no sense 
of gratitude, and scowl with hatred on those 
who bring them succour. When lying maimed 
on the battle-field, they have often treacherously 
stabbed those who in pity have carried water to 
their parched lips. They have never shown 
mercy, and they are now likely to receive little 
from the tribes which they have ground down 
with such unspeakable cruelty, and which are 
now rising, one after the other, all round the 
doomed Baggara hosts at Omdurman and 
Metamneh.'* 

Omdurman, therefore, will not be taken 
without a severe struggle. Taken, how- 
ever, it will be, and the Dervish power 
be broken forever, always supposing that 



and France. 157 

no European or far Eastern complication 
necessitates the return of the British 
troops, in which case the Egyptian Army 
would confine itself to holding Berber. 
Remnants of the Dervishes will make 
their way up the Nile, or scatter to the 
southwest, to be absorbed or destroyed by 
the native populations, or be exterminated 
piecemeal as the Egyptian administration 
gradually extends over the remoter prov- 
inces. For, of course, Omdurman is not 
the goal. "Cape to Cairo" is the ideal, 
although at present it is difficult to see 
how the through route is to be secured. 
But the Equatorial Provinces — Kordofan, 
Sennaar, Darfur, and the Bahr-el-Ghazal 
— were all part of the old Egyptian Sudan, 
and they will be restored to the new one. 
Omdurman will be held as a fortified base 
and centre, and sooner or later a farther 
series of advances will be made. In this 
direction, however, the British Govern- 
ment has suffered a most severe disap- 
pointment in the revolt in Uganda and 
the ruin of Major Macdonald's plan. 
Though not officially announced, it was 



158 England, the Sudan, 

well known to students of the situation 
that an advance down the Nile northward 
was to be made pari passu with the ad- 
vance southward from Omdurman. Now 
the movement from the south has been 
indefinitely postponed, while the French 
are straining every nerve to reach the 
Upper Nile first. Possibly with a view 
to filling the gap in their preparations 
left by the wholly unexpected collapse in 
Uganda, the Foreign Office consented to 
a private expedition attempting a short 
cut to the Nile, across the country to the 
south of Abyssinia. This was planned by 
Mr. S. H. S. Cavendish, a very young, 
wealthy, and plucky relative of the Duke 
of Devonshire, who has recently returned 
from a long, adventurous, and highly suc- 
cessful hunting expedition in Africa. His 
preparations were made, a very large sum 
of money spent, several officers given leave 
to accompany him, his transport engaged, 
and a ship sent out from England with his 
stores, when suddenly the authorities with- 
drew their permission. The reason has 
not been made public, and, indeed, all the 



and France. 159 

details about the Cavendish expedition 
are confidential; but it may be surmised 
either that they had good reason to fear 
complications with the Emperor Menelek 
of Abyssinia, or that they have learned 
that the French have already reached the 
Nile. Be that as it may, Mr. Cavendish 
remains in London, and Indian troops are 
marching to suppress the Uganda revolt. 
In this connection, too. Lord Salisbury's 
warning against the use of small-scale 
maps should be borne in mind, and the 
fact realised that Kharttlm is just about 
halfway — 1,700 miles — between Cairo 
and the great African lakes. 

So far all is plain forecast. The com- 
plication and uncertainty come in when 
we consider the action of France. Herein 
lies not only the gravest problem for 
Egypt, but a very real danger to the 
peace of Europe. In 1895 it became 
known that French expeditions were se- 
cretly advancing from the West Coast of 
Africa toward the Nile. Sir Edward Grey, 
then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 
declared in the House of Commons that 



i6o England, the Sudan, 

the valley of the Upper Nile was included 
in the " British and Egyptian Spheres of 
Influence," and he added that "any ad- 
vance into the Nile Valley on the part of 
France would be an unfriendly act; and 
it was well known to the French Govern- 
ment that we should so regard it." Diplo- 
macy affords no more serious language 
than this, and the speech produced a deep 
impression, Mr. Chamberlain, on behalf 
of the Opposition, expressing entire con- 
currence. The present Government, I 
happen to know, maintains precisely the 
opinion thus expressed by Sir Edward 
Grey on behalf of Lord Rosebery. The 
French answer has been to push on her 
expeditions with redoubled vigour, and to 
allow it to be frankly declared that their 
object was "to reach the Upper Nile be- 
fore the English, and, after reassuring the 
Mahdi concerning the pacific intentions 
of France (!), to take possession of the 
Sudanese province of Bahr-el-Ghazal." 
Two expeditions are on their way from 
the west, under Captain Marchand and 
Captain Liotard, while a third, under the 



and France. i6i 

Marquis de Bonchamps, comprising five 
Frenchmen and 500 Abyssinian soldiers, 
has crossed Abyssinia from the East 
Coast. The rendezvous of the three par- 
ties was Fashoda, an important fortified 
town on the White Nile, 344 miles from 
Khartum, the river being navigable be- 
tween the two places. Above Fashoda it 
is choked by enormous masses of floating 
vegetation. . It is known that Marchand 
and Liotard reached Dem Soliman and 
Jur Ghattas in September last, — places in 
the Bahr-el-Ghazal respectively 300 and 
200 miles from Meshra-er-Rek, the "port" 
of the province, whence the Nile may be 
reached by water. At this time the Mar- 
quis de Bonchamps had reached the Abys- 
sinian boundary of the Sudan. It has 
since been repeatedly alleged, on the one 
hand, that disaster has overtaken the 
French expeditions, and on the other that 
they have all three met, as arranged, at 
Fashoda. The two from the Kongo side, 
at least, were safe and well on August 2 2d 
and September 12th, for private letters 
bearing these dates were received from 



1 62 England, the Sudan, 

them. Thus France, wholly disregarding 
the British protest and warning, has com- 
mitted the " unfriendly act " which Great 
Britain is pledged to resist. 

The case on each side is simple. 
France claims that as the Egyptian Gov- 
ernment was driven out of the Sudan by 
force of arms, that territory became the 
right of any nation which could first re- 
occupy it, all previous sovereignty being 
at an end. England, for Egypt, replies 
that, although the Egyptian forces were 
driven out by a revolt, Egypt has never 
abandoned her rights there, but has cease- 
lessly prepared herself for the re-establish- 
ment of her authority. That the whole 
of the Sudan was administered by Egypt 
is beyond question. When Gordon was 
Governor-General, his steamers went up 
and down to Fashoda, and he himself 
once went to Bahr-el-Ghazal, and declared 
that if he could have a free hand to deal 
with it, he would guarantee to pay all the 
expenses of the Sudan. On her own be- 
half, England adds that, as Egypt evacu- 
ated the Sudan on British advice. Great 



and France. 163 

Britain is in honour bound to see that she 
returns to it. Moreover, these southern 
provinces are the richest in men and pro- 
ducts. The Bahr-el-Ghazal is, perhaps, 
the finest recruiting ground in Africa, 
and Sennaar is "the granary of the 
Sudan." Therefore the Sudan cannot be 
successfully administered without them. 
Finally, as the very life of all Egypt, 
down to the sea, depends upon the Nile 
and its periodical rise, it would be fatal to 
Egypt for any foreign and hostile Power 
to be seated upon the Upper Nile, where 
modern engineering skill could draw off 
its waters for irrigating purposes, and thus 
instantly ruin whole districts of Lower 
Egypt. 

The coming conquest of Khartum — 
one uses the old word, although the old 
place no longer exists — will, therefore, 
bring to a head another acute ground of 
difference between England and France, 
whose relations are already severely 
strained by the situation in West Africa. 
With two such bones of contention as 
the Nile and the Niger, anything may 



164 England, the Sudan. 

happen. It can be regarded as perfectly 
certain that England will not give way so 
far as the Nile is concerned. Whether 
France will do so or not, supposing her 
expeditions to have accomplished their 
extremely difficult task, remains to be 
seen. If not, she will open up the whole 
question of the ultimate fate of Egypt, 
with which the fate of Turkey, the suze- 
rain of Egypt, is inextricably bound up, 
and thus precipitate a European situation 
in which a war between herself and Eng- 
land would be only an incident. 

Thus, as I said at the beginning, the 
march of the white men round the Union 
Jack, and the black men round the Egyp- 
tian crescent and star across the desert 
to-day, to meet and destroy the horsemen 
and the riflemen and the spearmen of the 
accursed Abdullah, deserves attention not 
only as a long stride of civilisation, but 
also because it is pregnant with issues of 
unimaginable gravity for the world. 



THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA. 



THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA. 

BY SIR GEORGE TAUBMAN-GOLDIE, 
K.C.M.G., 

Governor of the Royal Niger Company. 

THE Niger Territories is the official 
name of the sphere acquired for 
Great Britain by the Royal Niger Com- 
pany, and governed by it under Royal 
Charter. Within the last few months a 
shorter and more picturesque name has 
been given by the press to these territo- 
ries, and has been generally adopted by 
the public, — Nigeria. The British sphere 
of Nigeria is divided, roughly speaking, 
into two sections, as widely separated in 
laws, government, customs, and general 
ideas about life, both in this world and 
the next, as England is from China. End- 
less misconceptions have arisen from 
neglect of this fact, some writers having 
discussed Nigeria as if it were entirely 
composed of tribes similar to those of the 
Lower Niger, or in other West Coast 



1 68 The Future of 

possessions of Great Britain, while some 
writers have treated it as if it were 
entirely composed of organised and 
semi-civilised Mohammedan States, The 
southern third of Nigeria, lying on either 
side of the Lower Niger, and to the south 
of the river Binue, is for the most part 
occupied only by pagans, occupying as 
yet only a low rank of civilisation. They 
are divided into hundreds of tribes, most 
of which, before the advent of British 
power, were not only addicted to practices 
of outrageous cruelty, but were also con- 
stantly warring against each other, chiefly 
for the purpose of capturing slaves. This 
southern third of Nigeria — and especially 
the maritime and most barbarous portion 
— has naturally been more frequently vis- 
ited by Europeans than the regions of the 
far interior, so that to many persons the 
word Niger conjures up only a picture of 
mangrove swamps and tropical forests, 
inhabited by semi-nude savages living 
under the terrors and horrors resulting 
from witchcraft and fetishism. 

I do not propose to say much about 



Nigeria. 169 



this southern third of Nigeria, because, 
although the forests teem with valuable 
products, such as rubber, and there seems 
little doubt that the trade of this region, 
in forest products alone, will at no distant 
time attain such dimensions as to count 
materially in the volume of trade of the 
British Empire, a considerable period 
must elapse before these inferior tribes, 
who have doubtless been gradually driven 
south toward the sea by the pressure of 
higher races advancing from the north, 
acquire the industrious habits on which 
alone a wealthy and civilised State can be 
built up. To most of this region applies 
the popular idea of the negro as a some- 
what indolent person, with moderate wants 
and little ambition. 

Very different, however, are the condi- 
tions of the inland two thirds of Nigeria 
lying between the Great Sahara on the 
north and the two great branches of the 
rivers Niger and Binue on the south. 
This region covers the larger portion of 
the Central Sudan. It is specially impor- 
tant to bear in mind its Sudanese charac- 



170 The Future of 

ter, at a time when the attention given by 
the press to Egyptian questions tends to 
confine to the eastern or Egyptian Sudan 
a name which, as every geographer knows, 
applies to all the black man's lands under 
Moslem influence. The Stldan extends 
some 3,000 miles across Africa from the 
frontiers of Abyssinia on the east to those 
of Senegal on the west. No adequate 
policy can be formed for dealing with the 
northern two thirds of Nigeria without 
due recognition of its close connection 
with other Sudanese regions, — a connec- 
tion due partly to unity of religion, and 
partly to the constant intercommunication 
maintained by the streams of Hausa cara- 
vans, bent on trade or pilgrimage, or both 
combined, which flow from Kano and 
other great cities of Hausaland into al- 
most every part of Africa north of the 
equator. To this larger, more important, 
and more interesting part of Nigeria, I 
wish to draw special attention. 

For the sake of brevity, it is desirable 
to find an appropriate name for the whole 
of the Sudanese region, and I know of 



Nigeria, 171 

none more suitable than that often given 
to it, — Hausaland. It is true that in 
considerable districts — for instance, in 
Northern Nupe — the inhabitants are not 
Hausas, but have a language of their 
own ; yet even in these portions the civil- 
ised habits and modes of thought of the 
Hausas are predominant. The caravans 
which pass almost continuously along 
the bush-tracks in every direction are 
Hausa. The merchants in the towns are 
Hausa, and the lingua franca is \h.e Hausa 
tongue. But the Hausas are not rulers, 
even in their own provinces. Supreme 
political power in Hausaland is held by 
the Fulah race, — an alien people of uncer- 
tain, but probably Eastern origin, who, in 
the early part of this century, conquered 
the seven old Hausa kingdoms, whence 
they gradually extended their power 
southward and eastward, thus forming the 
vast empire known as Sokoto Gandu, or, 
more briefly, as the Fulah Empire. The 
Fulahs, when of pure breed, have light 
complexions, regular and fine features, 
and oval faces; and some of the women 



172 The Future of 

are possessed of striking beauty, both of 
face and figure. But as Fulah men fre- 
quently intermarry with women of Hausa 
and other African races, many of the rul- 
ing caste are now of negro colour and fea- 
ture. The conquest of the immense and 
fairly civilised populations of Hausaland 
at the beginning of this century, by a 
comparatively small number of Fulahs, 
has often excited surprise. The Fulahs 
are undoubtedly inferior to the Hausas 
in the arts of peace, and, so far as it is 
known, they have not introduced any sin- 
gle element of civilisation into Hausaland, 
while their passion for slave raiding has 
impoverished and depopulated those re- 
gions. Their military success has been, 
doubtless, due to religious fanaticism and 
to personal courage. To these qualifica- 
tions of the Fulahs of fanatical and first- 
class fighting men must be added their 
astuteness as diplomatists and their 
knowledge how to "divide and govern." 
The proud character of the race is well 
described by the proverbial saying that a 
Fulah man slave will escape or kill his 



Nig 



ena. 173 

master, and that a Fulah girl slave will 
rule the harem or die. 

But the main secrets of the Fulah con- 
quests and of their present power is the 
fact of their being an equestrian race. 
Their cavalry, armed like our own with 
lances and swords, is formidable to dis- 
ciplined troops, and is irresistible against 
an untrained army on foot. History tells 
us that this rule has been universal. The 
part played by the horse in the conquest 
of Mexico by Cortes is too well known 
to need more than a passing reference ; 
so, too, in Europe, mere handfuls of 
knights used to put to flight masses of 
sturdy villeins^ until Morgarten and Crecy 
showed how disciplined infantry could 
resist cavalry. The thorough training 
and leading of Hausa soldiers by British 
officers and the introduction of modern 
artillery into the Sudan regions have com- 
menced, and will, before long, complete 
the enfranchisement of Hausaland from 
the unceasing slave-raiding which has 
been so terribly destructive to human life 
and an absolute barrier to prosperity. 



174 The Future of 

This summary of the political and 
social situation in Hausaland has been 
necessary, because misgovernment has 
been the main obstacle to progress there. 
At the International Geographical Con- 
gress, two years ago. Sir John Kirk very 
aptly described tropical Africa as " a lost 
continent, owing to the misrule which has 
pervaded it." His description is true of 
all tropical Africa ; but it is specially true 
of Hausaland, where, but for native mis- 
government, all the elements of a great 
civilisation are present. The Hausas are 
possessed of remarkable energy, judgment, 
and intelligence. They are skilful and 
almost artistic workers in metals, leather, 
and other materials. They possess his- 
tories, songs, and tales written in their 
own tongue. Stanley says that of all 
the African races the Hausa alone valued 
a book. They have the advantage of a 
fertile soil, and they display that eager 
desire to get on in the world which is so 
unpleasing in the individual but so valu- 
able for the State. Above all, they are 
unlike most African races in that they 



Nigeria. 175 

are extremely industrious, notwithstanding 
the little inducement to display this virtue 
in a land where the acquisition of wealth 
has too frequently led to loss of liberty or 
life. Many competent authorities have, 
accordingly, declared Hausaland to be by 
far the most valuable section of tropical 
Africa. 

For excellent reasons, its mineral re- 
sources have not yet been explored, 
although some deposits are already known 
to exist. In this connection it is well to 
remember that only thirty to forty years 
ago the immense mineral wealth of South 
Africa was so little suspected that a con- 
siderable section of the English press used 
to advocate retirement from South Africa, 
excepting Cape Town, which was to be 
held as a coaling station on the road to 
India. But although minerals are most 
valuable to give a start to a new country, 
the only foundations of permanent pros- 
perity are the industry, intelligence, and 
prolificness of its inhabitants combined 
with fertility of soil. All these conditions 
are united in Hausaland. The manner in 



176 The Future of 

which population there rights itself after 
the wholesale destruction resulting from 
slave raids is hardly credible in colder 
climates where infancy is prolonged, while 
at least six times the existing population 
could support themselves in comfort. If 
properly administered, Hausaland would, 
at no distant date, become as valuable 
as any equal area of British India ; but 
patience is needed. 

The vital question to consider is how 
to maintain and increase British power 
there pending the final pacification of the 
country and the consequent development 
of a revenue sufficient to support normal 
colonial administration. The initial labours 
of opening up Nigeria and of laying the 
foundation of British justice there have 
so far been successful. The bugbear of 
Fulah power, which the official documents 
of ten years ago declared would crush 
the Niger Company at the first impact, 
has been, at any rate partially, laid by 
the recent campaign. The international 
struggles of the last fifteen years, with 
France and then Germany and then again 



Nig 



eria. 177 

France, have been gradually reduced to 
modest proportions. The most cogent 
motives for absolute silence have ceased. 
It seems to me the time has come to dis- 
cuss publicly the methods calculated to 
lead to success as well as those certain 
to lead to failure. 

In discussing this subject I am con- 
fronted with a personal difficulty. Being 
connected with the company which gov- 
erns Nigeria, it may be thought that my 
views are necessarily prejudiced. Let me, 
then, briefly state, once for all, that I have 
no mandate from the Niger Company, that 
the views advanced are purely personal, 
that these views are consistent either with 
the continuance of the company or its dis- 
appearance, and that I shall place myself 
at an entirely outside standpoint. 

Great Britain is at present in a hot 
fit of empire-making, which, like African 
fever, has its alternation of cold fits ; so 
lately as 1865 the House of Commons 
Select Committee, appointed to examine 
into West African matters, reported as 
follows : " That all further extension of 



178 The Future of 

territory, or assumption of government, 
or new treaties offering any protection to 
native tribes, would be inexpedient." It 
was, perhaps, partly due to this resolution 
that, until the Royal Niger Company 
stepped in and acquired half a million 
square miles of the most valuable part 
of tropical Africa, not a single step was 
taken into the interior by any of the 
West African colonies, which allowed 
another colonising Power to hem them 
in to the sea and deprive them of their 
hinterland. If a few failures and dis- 
asters, such as must occasionally occur in 
building up empire, were to happen, we 
should probably see the same policy re- 
vived. If the quondam author of " Greater 
Britain " urges our retirement to coast 
spheres in Africa at a time when colonial 
expansion is at fever heat, what will others 
of his opinion say — and do, if in power 
— when, as must inevitably happen, tem- 
porary misfortunes and disappointments 
occur, when reaction succeeds the out- 
burst of energy displayed since Germany 
commenced as a colonising Power, and 



Nigeria. 179 

when the watchword, " Imperium et liber- 
tas! " gives way to the " Rest and be 
thankful " against which we used to chafe 
twenty to thirty years ago? There would 
be little chance, in such circumstances, of 
Parliament continuing the financial sup- 
port which would certainly be required 
by Nigeria during its infancy, to maintain 
the costly method of normal imperial gov- 
ernment. The inevitable result would be 
failure, disappointment, and abandonment. 
Assuming that enough has been said to 
show the necessity of continuing in some 
shape or other the existing abnormal sys- 
tem which has enabled Nigeria to pay its 
way without the assistance of a single 
shilling from the Imperial Government, 
the next point to consider is how much 
of this is essential. 

The only vital condition to my mind 
is that Nigeria should continue to be 
administered as heretofore by a permanent 
council, untrammelled by bureaucratic 
formulae, experienced in African questions, 
corresponding somewhat with the Council 
of the Governor-General of India, con- 



i8o The Future of 

trolled, as are both chartered companies 
and governors of Crown colonies, by a 
Secretary of State, but no more subject 
than British India is to constant par- 
liamentary interference, and above all 
administering not locally, like Crown 
colonies, but from home, as the Council 
of the Niger Company has always done. 
The permanence of the members of such 
a council, subject, of course, to changes 
made by the Secretary of State, seems to 
me to be of vital importance. Let me 
say, with all respect, that I look on the 
appointment of the present Secretary of 
State for the Colonies as likely to mis- 
lead the public mind in regard to the 
principles for dealing with inner African 
dependencies. Mr. Chamberlain's extra- 
ordinary vigour, rapidity, voracity for work, 
and willingness to accept responsibility 
before Parliament, are likely to give the 
Colonial Office a reputation of suitability 
for creative administration which cannot 
be expected to survive his tenure of that 
particular office. 

The second vital point is that the Ad- 



Nigeria. i8i 

ministrative Council should govern from 
home and not locally in Nigeria. This 
is the only possible way of securing con- 
tinuity of administration of a region where 
no local continuity can be obtained at 
present, owing to the nature of the climate, 
in which Nigeria has perhaps greater diffi- 
culties to meet than the other European 
possessions in Equatorial Africa to which 
I have referred. There are, indeed, high 
ranges of plateaux in the far interior 
where white administrators could retain 
their activity and powers of work for long 
periods; but these areas of the Central 
Sudan are not yet effectively occupied, 
so that for some years to come they must 
be left out of account. Yet I desire to 
draw attention to them, as they will 
afford the ultimate solution of the diffi- 
cult question of the administration of 
Nigeria. 

Meanwhile it must be taken for granted 
that no local continuity of government is 
at present practicable, and this in regions 
where continuity is of vital importance, 
owing to the enormous difficulties to be 



1 82 The Future of 

overcome. In the coast possessions of 
West Africa, where European adminis- 
trators and traders live on or near the 
seaboard, and are practically under the 
protection of the Imperial Navy, and 
where powerful native governments do 
not exist, or can be dealt with by Imperial 
troops, as in the Ashanti War of 1874, 
local administration is not open to the 
same objections, although it is well known 
that the Colonial Office is compelled to 
exercise a larger share in. the actual gov- 
ernment of West African colonies than 
it does in Crown colonies in healthier 
climates, where continuity of local govern- 
ment can be maintained. 

In Nigeria, ever since the issue of the 
charter, the two agents-general, or local 
heads of the Niger Government, have been 
only executive officers with considerable 
latitude in carrying out their instructions, 
and they relieve each other at short inter- 
vals, to allow of their renewing their vigour 
at home. The real work of the adminis- 
tration, the work performed by governors 
— or by governors and councils — in 



Nigeria. 183 

Crown colonies or by the council of the 
Governor-General in India, has been dealt 
with day by day by a council living in the 
temperate and healthy climate of London, 
where not only can men work continuously 
for twice as many hours a day as they 
can in West Africa, — a vital matter in an 
emergency, — but where the character and 
effectiveness of the work done is entirely 
different. To this system, and not to any 
individual merit, has been due the suc- 
cessful administration to which both Lord 
Salisbury and Lord Kimberly have borne 
such striking and gratifying testimony. 

Whether this system continues as hereto- 
fore under the Chartered Niger Company, 
or whether, that company retiring from 
Nigeria, a governing council is created 
ad hoc, is only an accidental, I do not say 
unimportant feature. 

The one essential element is that con- 
tinuity shall be maintained by permanent, 
unwearying, and bold administration from 
home as heretofore controlled, but not 
conducted, by the office of a Secretary of 
State, until the simlas of Hausaland, to 



1 84 Future of Nigeria. 

which I have already alluded, are occu- 
pied and utilised, and a sufficient volume 
of commerce, and therefore revenue, is 
created to permit local government of the 
Norman type. When that day arrives, 
the foundations of Nigeria will have been 
fully laid, and it may then be left to 
natural causes to raise that great struc- 
ture of Nigerian prosperity which I shall 
not see, but in which, under reasonable 
conditions, I have the most absolute 
faith. 



THE KINGDOM OF UGANDA. 



THE KINGDOM OF UGANDA. 

BY COLONEL F. D. LUGARD, 

Commander of English Forces in Eigeria, Formerly of 
Uganda. 

THE people of Uganda are a Bantu 
race, much intermixed with the 
Wahuma stock. The latter are a great 
pastoral, nomad tribe, who probably form 
one of the most important offshoots of 
the stock from whence sprang the Abys- 
sinians, Somalis, Gallas, and other power- 
ful tribes, distinguished from the Bantu 
races not merely by their aquiline and 
regular features, their thin lips, and the 
fact that they have curly hair instead of 
the wool of the negroid races, but also 
by the different construction of their lan- 
guages. The Wahuma, it is related, con- 
quered the countries lying to the west of 
the Victoria Nyanza, including Uganda, 
Unyoro, Torn, Ankoli, Karagwe, and 
toward the Lake Tanganyika. They still 
retain Ankoli and Toru in the British 



1 88 The Kingdom 

sphere. This vast kingdom was known 
under the name of Kitara. 

Since there are no written records of 
the past, it is difficult to learn anything 
reliable concerning the ancient history of 
the Waganda. Emin Pasha, Dr. Felkin, 
the Rev. C. T. Wilson, and other early 
residents in and around the country have 
collected much interesting information, 
which is easily accessible to those who 
care to learn more of these people. Com- 
ing, however, to the events of to-day and 
the people as we find them at the present 
time, it is the unanimous verdict of every 
one, without exception, who has been 
brought into contact with this remarkable 
race, that they show a most extraordinary 
advance upon all the people who sur- 
round their country for thousands of miles 
to north, south, east, or w^est. They have, 
in fact, a certain civilisation of their own, 
a wonderful intelligence, customs, tradi- 
tion, etiquettes innumerable, and a won- 
derfully comprehensive language with an 
enormous vocabulary, which alone indi- 
cates the superiority of their intellectual 



of Uganda. 189 

attainments and the range of their ideas, 
as contrasted with the crude and simple 
dialects of their neighbours. Their quali- 
ties of disposition are marked. They are 
an extremely brave race, though treacher- 
ous from our point of view, are passion- 
ately fond of learning, and are capable of 
high attainments if educated from early 
childhood. 

I reached Uganda in 1891 as the first 
British officer to enter the country on a 
political and administrative mission since 
the time of Gordon and his emissaries, 
Chaillu, Long, and Emin Pasha. Gordon 
and his lieutenants had represented the 
extension of civilisation from the North, 
and were the representatives of the 
Khedive and of Egyptian rule. I came 
as the representative of the Imperial 
British East African Company, a corpora- 
tion under royal charter, vested with the 
delegated powers of sovereignty of the 
Queen of Great Britain. The rule of 
the Khedive and the germs of civilisation 
implanted in the Nile Valley by Baker, 
and developed by Gordon, had been swept 



ipo The Kingdom 

away by the religious upheaval which had 
enthroned the Mahdi in Omdurman, and 
placed an iron despotism over the tribes of 
the Eastern Sudan. It was the mission 
of England now to advance from the 
east, through the vast Sphere of Influence 
secured to her from Mombasa on the 
East Coast to the valley of the Nile and 
its watershed to the west. 

At this time I found the country torn 
by religious dissensions and a prey to 
anarchy and internecine war. Not the 
least remarkable of the traits of the 
Waganda is their passionate devotion to 
religion, and, like the Athenians of old, 
their cult is that of " the Unknown 
God." Mohammedanism taught by Arab 
missionaries from the East Coast, and 
Christianity as interpreted by Roman 
Catholic missionaries of a French Al- 
gerian mission, and Protestantism as 
represented by the English Church Mis- 
sionary Society were the protagonists on 
this virgin field, while paganism retained 
its hold on the more illiterate and less 
accessible classes of the population. It 



of Uganda. 191 

was indeed a most interesting study, this 
war of the creeds ; and, had the rivalry- 
been confined to an odium theologicttm 
only, an administrator might have re- 
garded it with the interest of a philoso- 
pher, and, while taking steps to prevent 
violence and war, have remained a specta- 
tor of the struggle, confident, with Carlyle, 
that that which held the strongest germ 
of truth within it would ultimately win. 
But, unfortunately, it was far otherwise. 

Though religion had lent its name to 
the strife, and accentuated its bitterness, 
the factions had become more political than 
religious at the time of my arrival. The 
Christians and pagans were the adherents 
of Mwanga, who, after various vicissitudes, 
was now on the throne, while the Moham- 
medans were for the moment the defeated 
party, and were massed on the frontier 
under their Sultan Mbogo, — Mwanga's 
uncle and rival for the kingship of 
Uganda, — and in alliance with Kaba 
Rega, the powerful King of Unyoro. 
Their constant raids made it essential to 
deal with them first, and as soon as I 



i^z The Kingdom 

had concluded a treaty with Mwanga and 
the chiefs, we marched out to meet them. 
It was my intense desire to come to terms 
with these people, who comprised a very 
large part of the population of Uganda, 
and to repatriate them ; but I had not yet 
acquired sufficient influence to carry my 
point, and my negotiations failed, and we 
were compelled to fight. Some 15,000 to 
20,000 combatants were ranged on either 
side, and my handful of " Askaris " formed 
the centre and rallying points of the so- 
called " Christian " army. We defeated 
them. Later on I made a new attempt, 
— its extreme difficulty is described in 
my book, — and I am glad to say it was 
successful. The Mohammedans rendered 
up their Sultan Mbogo to me, and he 
came to reside at Kampala with me. I 
assigned them three small provinces in 
which to settle down, and a small propor- 
tion of the offices of State. It is my great 
regret that since I left the country this 
arrangement has been upset, the Moham- 
medans have been accused of intrigue 
and treachery, and ousted and, I believe, 



of Uganda. 193 

almost annihilated. I do not doubt the 
intrigue; it is inevitable and certain in 
Uganda; but recent events have proved, 
if further proof were necessary, that in- 
trigue and rebellion were at least as com- 
mon to the other factions as to this. But 
to return to our protagonists. At the 
moment, the factions of the Christians 
and the pagans were united in their 
common dread of the Mohammedans ; 
but, this removed, they settled down into 
a triangular duel. Here again the re- 
ligious name was merely an accessory to 
further division of interests. The pagan 
party, called the Fublauji, or Chang- 
smokers, since they held to the old cus- 
toms of the country which all three 
religious factions alike had condemned, 
were the blind adherents of the King, 
who was at heart a pagan, and they de- 
tested all the religions alike; and the 
upstarts who had by their religious in- 
fluence made themselves the chiefs of the 
country, and superseded the old pagan 
aristocracy — if that term is admissible. 
Their political objects were to get rid 
13 



194 The Kingdom 

of all Europeans and all the troublesome 
religions which had proved such a curse 
to the country. The Christians again were 
equally divided between themselves, by 
causes quite apart from religion, though 
accentuated by it. The Roman Catholics 
were the French party who, taught by 
their priests, resented English influence, 
the more so that it strengthened, in their 
view, their detested rivals, "the English 
Party," or Protestants. Such were the 
promising materials out of which it was 
the task of the British Administrator to 
endeavour to evolve law and order, and 
such the factions between which he had 
to endeavour to hold the balance evenly 
and to distribute that justice without par- 
tiality which it is the pride of the English- 
speaking race to carry with them into the 
far places of the earth, and to which, as 
Lord Justice Vaughan Williams said the 
other day,^ is attributable the success 
of the English as colonists. Credit — an 
ephemeral and a worthless credit — may 
be gained before Europe by the aggran- 

1 Vide, the London "Times," February 3d, 1898, p. 10. 



of Uganda. 195 

disement of the two factions who have 
their loud-voiced representatives ready to 
sing the praises of the Administrator who 
adopts the views of their factions, or to 
execrate through the far-reaching chan- 
nels of the press of Europe him who will 
not listen to and follow their counsels. 
But the Mohammedan and the pagan, 
who form probably the bulk of the popu- 
lation, and who have no French Colonial 
Party, and no English mission enthusiasts 
to champion their cause, — are they and 
their wives and people therefore to be 
" no man's child," and dubbed the " out- 
law and criminal classes of Uganda " ? 
Until their claims to recognition and to 
justice are considered equally with the 
Christian factions, we shall hear of con- 
tinual uprisings in Uganda, of discontent, 
and of mutiny. 

The railway proceeds but slowly; and 
when it reaches the vast lake a new era 
will dawn, not only for Uganda, but for 
Central Africa. The development of the 
country will be on no known lines ; for 
when in the world's history have coun- 



196 The Kingdom 

tries, in the heart of a till recently un- 
explored land, and peopled by savages 
absolutely devoid of clothes, begun their 
march of progress by a ready-made rail- 
way 700 miles long ? This vast stretch of 
land, reaching from the sea to the inland 
lakes, is for the most part a very beautiful 
and a very fertile one. Its products may 
be almost anything that v^ill grow in a 
sub-tropical region and a rich soil. They 
will be what the world of commerce needs, 
and will be dictated by the wants of civil- 
ised man. Indigenous coffee, fibres of 
value, rubber, oil-seeds, and other products 
may be quoted ; but where a railway runs 
from one of the finest harbours in the 
world to the second largest lake on the 
planet, it has almost seemed to me idle 
to forecast the future commercial possi- 
bilities of a country where the soil is rich, 
the rainfall abundant, and the altitude 
renders the climate very fairly healthy, 
even in spite of the known dangers of 
virgin soil and virgin forests. 

My early connection with the country 
has given me the keenest interest in 



of Uganda. 197 

its present and future. My old friends 
among the chiefs still write to me con- 
stantly, though it is now six years since I 
left them ; and I trust that some day 
I may see them again, when other duties 
permit of it. Meanwhile, I am always 
glad to be able to interest any one in a 
country which is full of interest, and in 
whose future, under proper management, 
I believe. I trust, therefore, that these 
lines, written under press of much work, 
may interest their readers. 



ABYSSINIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 



ABYSSINIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 

BY CAPTAIN T. C. S. SPEEDY, 
Member of the Recent British Mission to King Menelek. 

UNTIL comparatively lately but little 
has been known of even the country 
of Abyssinia. It has been to the other 
nations of the world almost a terra incog- 
nita, a somewhat mythical land supposed 
to be inhabited if not by savages, at any 
rate by a wholly uncivilised people. Its 
boundaries even have been often ques- 
tioned, and the fact that it comprises 
several distinct nations speaking different 
languages has perhaps been known to 
very few. Such, however, is the case. 
Abyssinia consists of three large prov- 
inces, — Tigre on the north, Amhara on 
the south, and Shoa to the southeast. 
The people of Tigre speak Ethiopic, and 
those of Amhara and Shoa, Amharic. 

The Emperor of Abyssinia bears in his 
own country the titje of " Negusa Negust," 



202 Abyssinia and 

the interpretation of which is " King of 
Kings," meaning that the reigning sover- 
eign has by his own power conquered and 
subdued all other chiefs and aspirants to 
the throne, and that he reigns supreme 
until some chief greater and more power- 
ful than himself shall arise and dethrone 
him. 

The three sovereigns under whose sway 
Abyssinia has of late come to the front 
and attracted the attention of Europe, 
have been Theodore, who held his court 
at Magdala, and reigned from 1855 to 
1868 ; Johannes, his successor, 1870 to 
1889, whose capital was Makaleh; and 
the present Emperor Menelek, whose 
palace is at Adis Adaba, the town in 
which the late British mission, under Mr. 
Rennel Rodd, visited him in 1897. 

These kings had all a very distinct in- 
dividuality, and each in his own way was 
a remarkable man. Theodore, but little 
understood and much maligned, was a 
man of great foresight and very advanced 
ideas ; he was extremely anxious to bring 
his country to the front, and in every 



its People. 203 

way to promote its prosperity. He ar- 
dently longed for a seaport, and it was 
the keen disappointment of finding that 
he was not aided by the European Powers 
in these matters that caused his personal 
downfall and ruin. 

Johannes was distinctly more of a 
warrior than Theodore, with a less keen 
intellect ; and the present Emperor, Men- 
elek, although a man of no mean abilities, 
is parsimonious, and unwilling to make 
present outlay for future benefit. He is, 
however, greatly influenced by his clever 
wife, Ta-hai-itu, and his Commander-in- 
Chief, Ras Makonen, both of whom have 
aims in the right direction for Abyssinia. 

The people themselves have all the 
instincts for civilisation and progress, and 
their physique is that of a perfectly inde- 
pendent and clear-headed race. They are 
well formed, the men averaging five feet 
ten inches in height, with good features, 
bearing but little if any resemblance to 
other African tribes, and none to the 
negro. They are athletic and hardy, 
having great powers of endurance, the 



204 Abyssinia and 

rugged and mountainous nature of their 
country inducing, from their earliest years, 
a capability for climbing and rough walk- 
ing, equalled perhaps only by the Tyrolese. 
They make excellent soldiers with even a 
minimum of training, and show an apti- 
tude for following the evolutions of drill 
which is surprising in an untutored 
race. 

Possessing strong characters and ardent 
passions, it is at present, in their somewhat 
lawless condition, difficult to reckon upon 
their line of action in exceptional circum- 
stances. In cases where their affection 
and confidence have been gained, they 
show the most unswerving fidelity, even 
to the white man, and run risks of punish- 
ment from their own chief or emperor 
rather than betray confidence. It was well 
known that before the first British expedi- 
tion to Abyssinia in 1867 and 1868, under 
Lord Napier, of Magdala, the captives in 
the dungeons of Magdala were able to 
send messages to the British agent at 
Massoua, who procured for them wines, 
provisions, and money, which their trusty 



its People. 205 

Abyssinian servants conveyed surrepti- 
tiously to them at the risk of their own 
lives and liberty. 

Should, however, no such confidence 
or affection exist, treachery, cruelty, and 
deceit are often met with ; but even these 
qualities do not exist among them to a 
greater extent than among many uncivi- 
lised peoples. 

But little can be said of the morality 
of the Abyssinians. This, however, is 
chiefly attributable to the prevalent form 
of marriage, which is merely a civil con- 
tract of the loosest description, dissolved 
at the pleasure of either of the contract- 
ing parties. 

There is besides this a binding and 
most sacred form of marriage celebrated 
by the Church, from which there is no 
divorce; and it is, perhaps, the irrevoca- 
bility of this tie that causes the bulk of 
the people to prefer the civil contract, 
rather than any tendency to gross sensu- 
ality. I do not think I have met one in a 
thousand who had chosen the marriage 
in church. 



2o6 Abyssinia and 

The Abyssinians are a Christian nation 
of ancient date, having been converted 
to Christianity in the fourth century, by 
missionaries sent from Alexandria, by 
Bishop Athanasius, the author of the 
creed that bears his name. 

Their tenets are similar to those of 
the Coptic Church, and for the last two 
centuries the " Abuna," or High Priest 
of Abyssinia, has been a Copt from Egypt. 
Before leaving for Abyssinia he is invari- 
ably obliged to take an oath never to 
return to his own country. They hold 
the Divinity of our Lord, the redemption 
of man, the annunciation to the Virgin 
Mary ; and they believe in Purgatory, but 
they allow no images in their places of 
worship. 

The walls of their churches are 
frequently adorned with rude frescos 
representing the crucifixion, — accurately 
depicting the thieves on either side, the 
Roman soldier offering a sponge filled 
with vinegar on the end of a spear, and 
the Mother of our Lord at the foot of 
the cross. Other paintings depict the 



its People. 207 

passage of the Red Sea, the soldiers being 
armed with match-locks, Eve offering the 
forbidden fruit to Adam in the shape of 
a huge banana, and many different scenes 
from Scripture history. They also in- 
troduce the likenesses of their favourite 
saints, — Saint George and the Dragon, 
Saint George being, curiously enough, the 
patron saint of the country. They are 
extremely tenacious of their faith, and in 
the sixteenth century, when the country 
was overrun and subdued by Moslems 
from the Adal Kingdom on the east, 
now known as Somaliland, they preferred 
death to the abnegation of Christianity. 
Messages imploring assistance were sur- 
reptitiously sent to Portugal, and an 
armed force, under Cristoforo de Gama, 
enabled them to reclaim their country 
from the infidel invaders, since which 
time they have remained in undisturbed 
possession of their Christian faith. 

The laws of Abyssinia are primitive, 
and based on those of the Israelites, " An 
eye for an eye." There are neither law 
courts nor lawyers ; both plantiff and 



2o8 Abyssinia and 

defendant plead their own cause. For- 
merly, prior to the appointment by King 
Theodore of executioners, the guilty per- 
son, in case of murder, was slain in 
exactly the same manner in which he had 
taken the life of his victim. For instance, 
if a man killed another with a sword, the 
avenger of blood had to use a similar 
weapon. If death had been caused by 
blows from a club, a club was used to 
take the life of the murderer. This law 
most unjustly operated even in cases of 
man-slaughter ; and the life of a man 
who unwittingly and unintentionally had 
caused the death of another could be de- 
manded by the relatives of the deceased. 
Among many others, an instance of this 
kind was once related to me. Two men 
were cutting grass on the side of a preci- 
pice, and when they were about to de- 
scend one of them fastened the end of a 
rope round his companion's body to lower 
him down the cliff, and attached the other 
end to the trunk of a tree. Accidentally, 
the man to be lowered slipped before 
all was ready, and a coil of the rope, 



its People. 209 

becoming entangled round his neck, he 
was strangled. His comrade, on sub- 
sequently descending by slipping down 
the rope, was horrified to find him dead 
at the bottom, and hastened to the village 
to report the circumstance. The judge 
passed a sentence of man-slaughter, and 
ordered a fine of one hundred and fifty 
dollars to be paid to the widow. The 
widow, however, refused the compensation, 
and demanded the literal carrying out of 
the law. After some deliberation, it was 
agreed that she could carry her point, 
and the unfortunate and perfectly inno- 
cent man was sentenced to be hung with 
the same rope which had caused the fatal 
accident; the rope was, accordingly, fast- 
ened round his waist, and a coil of the 
same passed round his neck, and he was 
hauled up a few feet from the ground, 
suspended a few moments and then 
lowered again. The widow, believing him 
from all appearances to be dead, was sat- 
isfied; but the relatives of the victim 
hastened to him and applied restoratives, 
which were so effective that in course of 
14 



2IO Abyssinia and 

time he got up and walked away. The 
widow was furious, and demanded that 
the sentence should be again enacted, 
adding : *' Next time I will hold on to 
his feet until he is dead." The judge, 
however, declared that justice must be 
tempered with mercy, and her demand 
was not complied with. 

In conducting a lawsuit, the case opens 
by the plaintiff laying his complaint be- 
fore the judge. The charge having been 
heard, a bystander is placed between plain- 
tiff and defendant as " asteraki," — i, e., 
" peacemaker," — a kind of clerk to keep 
order between them, and the defendant is 
directed to reply. After listening for a 
short time the judge enjoins silence by 
holding up his hand, and two or more 
elders, called '* ShimagelH," are then ap- 
pointed to act as jury. The plaintiff is 
then allowed to go into the details of his 
case, while the defendant may murmur 
dissent or denial at intervals by grunts of 
disapprobation, though no word is allowed. 
Brevity and speaking to the point are 
imperatively demanded of both parties. 



its People. 211 

When the plaintiff has spoken, the de- 
fendant is heard, and no interruptions 
are permitted while either man is 
speaking. 

A curious custom is followed during a 
lawsuit, which is part of the dramatic 
habit of the Abyssinians of expressing their 
feelings by the way in which they wear 
their clothes. Either plaintiff or defend- 
ant may take a corner of the toga, or 
shammah, worn by the asteraki, and, hav- 
ing knotted it, may hold it up before the 
judge, and, laying a hand expressively on 
the knot, may wager that he is speaking 
the truth. A man will exclaim : " I wager 
a mule, a sheep, a fat ox, or a jar of honey 
that my statement is correct ; " and if his 
opponent accepts the wager, he unties the 
knot, saying : " I accept." Witnesses are 
then heard ; and when the case is ended, 
judge and jury confer apart, and judgment 
is given, the loser paying his wager to the 
judge in lieu of other fee. 

The custom already referred to, of ex- 
pressing their feelings by the manner of 
arranging their toga, is unique and artis- 



212 Abyssinia and 

tic. This toga is a large white cotton 
sheet, woven in the country, with a deep 
red border, at least twelve inches in width, 
a foot and a half from the edge. To ex- 
press scorn, a man will take the end of the 
toga, or "shammah," and raise it to his 
face, drawing it lightly across his nose 
just below the eyes, and turn at the same 
moment with an indignant and haughty 
gesture from his opponent. The superi- 
ority of a chief when conversing with his 
inferiors in rank is shown by throwing the 
shammah over both shoulders, crossing it 
over the left, thereby indicating that no 
hand of friendship is to be offered. Equal- 
ity is indicated by the shammah being 
thrown over the left arm only, leaving the 
right hand free to greet an acquaintance. 
Not infrequently when pleading his cause 
the accused, at the commencement of a 
trial, will draw his shammah before his 
face and, with expressions of humility and 
shame, state his defence, whether guilty or 
not; at the same time he will whisk one 
end of it into the semblance of a rope, 
and, passing it round his neck, exclaim: 



its People. 213 

" Hang me, if I deserve it," or, twisting it 
into the likeness of a sword, say : " Behead 
me, if I speak falsely," then, allowing it 
to fall to the ground, he will drop on 
his knee, adding: "But what I ask is 
justice." 

Although the Abyssinians are a decidedly 
progressive race, and fond of meeting and 
mixing with other nations, and anxious for 
commerce and the improvement of their 
country generally, they are heavily handi- 
capped by their despotic government, and 
the individual character of their Emperor 
and various chiefs. From the latter, for 
instance, they are often subject to exorbi- 
tant taxation, so that they have little or 
no inducement to cultivate their land 
further than is sufficient for their imme- 
diate use, although enough cereals could 
be grown to form a large export. The 
soil is principally black clay, excellent for 
the growth of wheat, barley, oats, millet, 
and coffee. The latter indeed grows wild 
everywhere, the plants, at an elevation of 
from three to five thousand feet, growing 
twelve feet high and upward. An exten- 



214 Abyssinia and 

sive trade could also be carried on in 
honey, beeswax, butter, aloes, sulphur, 
ebony, ox-hides, ivory, and civet-musk. 
Iron is also common, cropping up all 
over the country, while gold and copper 
have frequently been met with. 

Another defect which militated against 
the promotion of commerce is the absence 
of a seaport. The present Emperor is not 
anxious to have one. He represents, with 
some reason, that a port could easily be 
wrested from him by any nation possess- 
ing a fleet, and he has not a sufficiently 
well-trained army or ordnance that would 
enable him to hold his own against a 
maritime power; whereas the high table- 
land of Abyssinia, with its almost inacces- 
sible fastnesses, renders defence in the 
interior a comparatively easy matter. On 
the western border, moreover, lie the 
inimical Mahdists, who, with their hatred 
of Christians, are ever ready to harass 
and oppose any traders from or to their 
own land. This same foresight caused 
Theodore to seek the intercession of 
England and the other European Pow- 



its People. 215 

ers to grant him a protected passage 
to the coast ; and though his wish may 
have been chimerical, there is no doubt 
that the want of such safe transport is 
one of the greatest hinderances to the 
prosperity and advancement of this Httle 
kingdom. These difficulties make it quite 
impossible to form any definite idea of 
the influence of Abyssinia in the future 
of Africa. Time and the wisdom of their 
rulers, combined with European aid, will 
alone be able to determine this point; but 
there is but little doubt that she possesses 
all the capabilities of becoming a very 
powerful factor ; and it can only be hoped 
that in the near future Ethiopia may re- 
sume her original position as one of the 
great empires of the world. 



THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA — 
ITS FUTURE. 



THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA — 
ITS FUTURE 

BY J. C. HARTZELL, D.D., 

Missionary Bishop of Africa. 

LYING between the fifth and eighth 
degrees of north latitude, on the 
West Coast of Africa, is the little Negro 
Republic of Liberia. Its coast-line is 
about 300 miles, and its domain extends 
250 miles into the interior, so that its ter- 
ritory includes, perhaps, 75,000 square 
miles. It owes its existence to good men 
in America, both North and South, who, 
many years ago, felt that the freed people 
of the United States should have a place 
in the land of their fathers where they 
could have the opportunity and satisfac- 
tion of building a nation of their own, 
which should demonstrate the capacity 
of the negro for nation-building, and also 
open the way for his having a share in 
the civilisation and redemption of the 



220 The Republic 

African continent. The American Colo- 
nisation Society, and kindred organisa- 
tions, inaugurated and have fostered this 
philanthropic movement by facilitating 
the migration of negroes from the United 
States, and by advice and material aid in 
educational and other enterprises. 

There are now in the Republic about 
24,000 Americo-Liberians, speaking, of 
course, the English language ; and, per- 
haps, 1,000,000 native Africans. The for- 
mer are emigrants from the United States, 
or their descendants ; and the latter are 
made up of various tribes of aborigines, 
speaking many dialects, acknowledging 
the sovereignty of the Republic, but as 
a whole living in barbarism, as their 
fathers before them have done for many 
centuries. 

The form of government is modelled 
after that of the United States, and only 
negroes can own land, become citizens, or 
hold office. A few thousand natives have 
become civilised, and are a part of the 
nation. For twenty-five years Liberia was 
a colony, under the immediate direction 



of Liberia. 221 

of the Colonisation Societies; but in 
1847 the nation was formed and received 
the friendly recognition and good will of 
other nations. Liberia and Hayti are 
the only nations in the world controlled 
entirely by negroes. 

To say that the hopes of the friends of 
the negro as a nation-builder have been 
realised during the past fifty years in 
Liberia, would not be true. On the other 
hand, to accept the uncharitable and un- 
kind criticisms of the struggling Republic, 
which are heard along the coast from 
many traders and travellers^ and often reit- 
erated in Europe and America, would be 
doing great injustice to the people of 
Liberia. I have recently held conversa- 
tions with representative Liberians and 
others in the principal centres of the 
Republic, and have studied its present con- 
ditions and outlook. When we consider 
the difficulties which these people have 
had to meet in a new and, to many, a 
hostile climate, their lack of wealth and ex- 
perience in government, surrounded and 
permeated by multitudes of barbarous 



222 The Republic 

heathen, and subjected constantly to the 
uncharitable criticisms of white traders 
and travellers, the marvel is that so much 
in the way of efficient government and 
advance in social conditions has been ac- 
complished. True, their national domain, 
rich in minerals and agricultural possibili- 
ties, has not even been explored; but it 
is also true that, until within a very few 
years, but little advance has been made 
by other nations on either coast of the 
continent in extending practical and effi- 
cient government among the natives of 
the interior. The advance of the past 
few years has been the result of enor- 
mous expenditures in money, backed by 
powerful Governments, able to command 
the best administrative talent. 

President Coleman and his official ad- 
visers have come fully to realise the in- 
creasing difficulties which their nation 
must face. In the first place, a few great 
nations are rapidly dominating all Africa, 
and the possessions of any one small na- 
tion on the continent must be in constant 
jeopardy unless its Government has the 



of Liberia. 223 



practical friendship of at least one great 
nation. Both Germany and France are 
exceedingly anxious to acquire the terri- 
tory of the RepubHc, and France holds a 
treaty by which, if any part of the Repub- 
lic's domain is alienated, it will have the 
right to reassert its claim for certain valu- 
able territories on the coast, and also its 
hinterland down to within forty miles of 
the coast, which would mean practically 
the annihilation of the Republic. Recent 
troubles between a German subject and 
some . Liberian natives led to the demand 
for a large indemnity in money and other 
concessions, accompanied with a proposed 
treaty for a German Protectorate, which, if 
agreed to, would settle the dispute. 

The growth of the Republic in popula- 
tion is slow, and it cannot be large until, 
by the opening up of the country, there 
can be opportunities for the investment of 
capital, so that remunerative labour and 
agricultural openings can be given to 
those who migrrate from the United States 
and elsewhere. Lack of money has made 
the development of an efficient educa- 



224 The Republic 

tional system impossible, and the second 
generation of children is growing up 
with but few facilities for instruction. 

What Liberia wants and needs is, first, 
that her nationality shall be guaranteed 
by some powerful friend. She naturally 
turns to the United States, and if for any 
cause a proper protectorate cannot be 
secured from that source, she next turns 
to England. Both nations have shown her 
friendly offices several times, and, being of 
the same language and religion, she natu- 
rally looks to them. Her people shudder 
at the thought of falling under a forced 
protectorate of any people of foreign 
language. 

A nationality secured in the way sug- 
gested would open the way to practical 
and efficient co-operation in the adminis- 
tration of the local government, and of 
extending influence and control among 
the natives, would open the way for aid 
in the development of a system of finance, 
by which reliable and adequate revenue 
could be collected and administered. It 
would also open the way for the appoint- 



of Liberia. 



225 



ment, at the request of the Republic, of 
explorers and specialists to explore the 
territory and locate its wealth, and open 
lines of communication, first, by ordinary 
roads, then, by telegraph, and, later on, by 
railways, — all in the interest of the 
Republic, and of such friendly represen- 
tatives of commerce as might desire to 
develop trade. Another important mat- 
ter would be advice and assistance in 
proper emigration from the United States 
and elsewhere. Whatever America can- 
not do herself, I believe England would 
gladly co-operate in doing, at the sugges- 
tion of America, and Liberia is ready 
and anxious to have such friendly aid 
as these nations could properly and wisely 
give. 

With the exception of this little patch 
of territory owned by the Republic of 
Liberia, all the African continent, with 
its 150,000,000 of black natives, is rapidly 
passing under the rule of the white man. 
This tremendous fact must be accepted as, 
in the Providence of God, marking a new 
era in the history of the black races. 

15 



226 Republic of Liberia. 

They are to have their chance in their 
continental home for generations at least 
under the tutelage of white Govern- 
ments. 

Liberia, however, has existed for seventy- 
five years as a colony or nation. It is the 
Providential child of the best thought and 
prayers and help of thousands of Christ- 
ian people whose convictions were clear 
and positive that in some organised way 
the millions of negroes in America should 
have a share in the redemption of Africa. 
I believe that conviction was of God, and 
I also believe that it is the duty of Amer- 
ica and England to hear and heed the 
appeal of this child of Providence. 



THE COMMERCE, RAILWAYS, 

AND TELEGRAPHS OF 

AFRICA. 



THE COMMERCE, RAILWAYS, 

AND TELEGRAPHS OF 

AFRICA. 

BY EDWARD HEAWOOD, M.A., 
Of the Royal Geographical Society. 

THE great Desert of Sahara divides 
the African continent into two 
very distinct regions. To the north, we 
have a strip of country similar on the 
whole in climate and productions to the 
southern parts of Europe, with which, 
through the facilities of communications 
supplied by the Mediterranean, it has 
been brought into close relations almost 
since the dawn of history. To the south, 
on the contrary, the great bulk of the con- 
tinent has for centuries been isolated by 
that great desert barrier, while, as regards 
by far the greatest part of its area, it dif- 
fers in toto from North Africa, both in its 
climate, productions, and people. It is, 
therefore, to Africa south of the Sahara, 
and in particular to the tropical regions to 



230 Commerce, Railways, 

which the term " new world of the nine- 
teenth century " above all applies, that 
our attention will be directed in the pres- 
ent article. 

In dealing with the commerce of Africa, 
it is unavoidable that we should look to 
the future rather than the present. The 
total volume of trade of the whole conti- 
nent, and especially of the area within the 
tropics, is at present so insignificant, as 
shown by the latest estimates, that the 
question that perforce thrusts itself upon 
our consideration is, whether the present 
state of things is to continue, or whether 
the future has in store that awakening to 
participation in the life of the world which 
may enable the African continent to take 
a more equal place among the rest than it 
does at present. It will, therefore, be 
necessary to look briefly at some of the 
causes which are responsible for the pres- 
ent backward condition of Africa. 

Foremost among these is usually placed 
the uniform outline of the continent, and 
the absence of natural means of commu- 
nication with the interior. But although 



Telegraphs of Africa. 231 

these certainly account for the isolation of 
the interior parts, they form an inadequate 
reason for the undeveloped condition of 
the coast-lands, — many of which possess 
great fertility, — except in so far as the 
unbroken nature of the coasts and the 
absence of outlying islands has not tended 
to the evolution of enterprising races of 
navigators, such as have sprung up in 
more favoured parts of the world. The 
reason is rather to be found (i) in the 
character of the inhabitants; (2) in the 
absence of valuable products which might 
attract merchants from other parts of the 
world. 

Africa possesses few thrifty and indus- 
trious races, such as those of southern 
and eastern Asia, whose silks and muslins 
formed an article of trade with the West 
in very early times; nor, on the other 
hand, could its supplies of the precious 
metals, or its natural vegetable produc- 
tions, vie with the riches of Mexico and 
Peru, or with the costly spices of the far 
East. Thus, while America and Asia 
offered an irresistible attraction to the 



232 Commerce^ Railways, 

merchants and adventurers of Europe, 
and poured untold wealth into their cof- 
fers, African commerce has remained in a 
state of complete stagnation down to our 
own day. 

It by no means follows, however, that 
the outlook for the future must of neces- 
sity be equally gloomy. While the rich 
treasures of the East and West did their 
work in attracting European enterprise to 
those regions, they no longer form the sole 
or even the principal basis of commerce, 
vast as have been the strides made by it 
within the past century. If we examine 
a list of the exports of such countries as 
India or Brazil, we find that by far the 
larger part consists of plantation products, 
grown largely under European supervi- 
sion, most of which Africa is equally 
capable of producing, when once a suffi- 
cient impetus is given by the enterprise 
of the white races. Of the leading articles 
exported by India during 1865-96, at 
least three-fifths (in value) consisted of 
such products as rice, raw cotton, oil- 
seeds, tea, coffee, and indigo, not including 



Telegraphs of Africa. 233 

opium, or items such as hides, skins, and 
wool, for the production of which Africa 
is at least equally adapted. From Brazil, 
again, the great bulk of the exports con- 
sist of the five items, coffee, sugar, rubber, 
tobacco, and cotton, all of which are also 
supplied by tropical Africa. It is, no 
doubt, an advantage to these countries to 
have obtained so important a start in the 
race, while Africa has hitherto lagged 
behind. 

We hear, too, of overproduction of some 
of these articles ; but, with the ever- 
increasing wealth and population of the 
world, it may be supposed that the in- 
creasing demand will, in time, necessitate 
new fields of supply. That most of the 
products alluded to will thrive well in 
tropical Africa, has been abundantly 
shown by recent experiments in cultiva- 
tion, notably by the successful introduc- 
tion of coffee-growing into Nyassaland and 
elsewhere, while it has been proved that, 
although the tropical regions of the con- 
tinent can never become the permanent 
home of the white man, many of the 



234 Commerce, Railways, 

higher districts are sufSciently healthy to 
enable him to live in comparative comfort, 
and supply the energy and supervision 
which are absolutely necessary to any 
undertakings of the kind alluded to. 

There is no doubt that agriculture is 
destined in future to be the mainstay of 
commercial prosperity for Africa, suppos- 
ing that it is ever attained. The supply 
of ivory, which, together with slaves, has, 
in the past, formed the staple product of 
the continent, must, sooner or later, come 
to an end, while the best of the jungle 
products — palm-oil, orchilla-weed, wax, 
gums, etc. — are hardly like to meet with a 
much larger demand than at present. An 
exception must be made in the case of 
rubber, the trade in which has made rapid 
strides within the past few years; but 
with the careless methods of collection 
employed, it is becoming more and more 
evident that the natural supplies cannot 
hold out indefinitely, but that, for this 
too, systematic cultivation will become 
necessary before long. 

In fill attempts at cultivation the labour 



Telegraphs of Africa. 235 

question undoubtedly forms an important 
difficulty, owing to the unwillingness of 
the negro to work except for the supply of 
his own positive wants. It would carry 
us too far from the subject to enter fully 
into the question ; suffice it to say, that 
the difficulty does not seem insurmounta- 
ble. The introduction of Indian coolies 
will, in Africa as elsewhere, possibly prove 
the best solution, while it may be hoped 
that the example of their thrift and indus- 
try may in time induce the natives to 
throw off their habits of indolence. It 
would, of course, be preferable to make 
use of the negro races, if that were possi- 
ble; and that this may be the case is 
shown by satisfactory reports from Nyas- 
saland, where tribes like the Angoni (of 
Zulu affinities) have shown an unusual 
readiness to work, and have proved them- 
selves both honest and industrious. 

We have considered so far merely the 
question of the supply of products for 
export. We have now to examine briefly 
the prospects of a market being obtained 
in Central Africa for the productions of 



236 Commerce, Railways, 

civilised nations. In this respect, also, 
Africa stands at a disadvantage by com- 
parison with other continents, the wants 
of the natives, both in the way of clothing 
and any of the other adjuncts of civilised 
life, are at present so small that it will 
be long before any large demand for such 
articles will arise. It is among the races 
of the Central Sudan, where Arab influ- 
ence and civilisation have long made 
themselves felt, that we may expect that 
a market will be soonest obtained. The 
population is here unusually dense for 
Africa, while some of the races, notably 
the Hausas, are naturally keen traders. 
The Hausa caravans travel for long dis- 
tances through the neighbouring coun- 
tries, and have of late been pushing 
farther and farther south, having even 
penetrated as far as the French estab- 
lishments in the Kongo Basin. Uganda 
is perhaps the next promising field for 
European trade, owing to its fairly dense 
population, and the remarkable readi- 
ness with which the inhabitants have 
imbibed European ideas. 



Telegraphs of Africa. 237 

One of the greatest obstacles to the de- 
velopment of African trade, at least with 
the interior regions, has of course been 
the entire absence of easy means of trans- 
port, that by native porters, which has 
until the last few years been almost the 
only method of conveying goods through- 
out the whole of tropical Africa, being far 
too costly to answer from a commercial 
point of view. This important defect is 
now being rapidly removed by the con- 
struction of railways, the progress made 
in which up to the present we shall 
shortly consider. First, however, it may 
be well to glance at the existing state of 
trade in the various European colonies 
and protectorates, and at the principal 
resources on which its future develop- 
ment, in each case, must depend. 

Beginning with South Africa, which 
occupies a position of its own, first, from 
the fact that its climate permits of col- 
onisation by the white men, and, secondly, 
from the great impetus given to trade by 
the recent development of mining indus- 
tries, we find, for the Cape Colony and 



238 Commerce, Railways, 

Natal, according to the statistics for 1897 
just published, a total volume of trade of 
somewhat over ^47,000,000, divided almost 
equally between imports and exports, the 
latter being in excess in the Cape Colony, 
the former in Natal. This amount cer- 
tainly far exceeds the total trade of the 
whole of tropical Africa, which w^as esti- 
mated by a well-informed writer in the 
London " Times," two years ago, to amount 
to little more than ;^ 1 7,000,000. It shows 
a great increase as compared with the total 
amount a few years back; in 1891, for 
instance, it reached a total of less than 
;^25,ooo,ooo. The great bulk of the in- 
crease is, however, made up of exports of 
gold coming from the Transvaal, though 
other items, such as mohair, hides, and 
ostrich feathers, show a satisfactory gain. 
Wool, on the contrary, shows a consider- 
able decline. A large proportion of the 
trade of the Transvaal and Orange Free 
State passes through the Cape Colony 
and Natal, and is thus included in the re- 
turns for those colonies. The rest passes 
through Louren90 Marquez, the Portu- 



Telegraphs of Africa. 239 

guese port of Delagoa Bay; but the ex- 
ports by this route are very small, while 
of the imports, food-stuffs form a consider- 
able item, showing the disregard to agri- 
culture due to the gold fever. In the 
interests of the permanent prosperity of 
South Africa, it is to be hoped that, in 
future, trade may depend less than it does 
at present on the proceeds of the gold and 
diamond mines. 

Turning now to tropical Africa, we find 
that it is only where jungle products are 
obtainable in large quantities, within easy 
distance of the coast, that the volume of 
trade has reached any considerable figure, 
and even here it is insignificant compared 
with that of flourishing colonies in other 
parts of the w^orld. In the British West 
African colonies, — including the Niger 
Coast Protectorate, — where the exports 
have been swelled by large amounts of 
rubber, palm-oil, and palm-kernels, the 
total trade has not yet much exceeded 
^6,000,000. Lagos, the Gold Coast, and 
the Niger Coast Protectorate, each show^ 
a trade of between ;^ 1,500,000 and 



240 Commerce, Railways, 

;^2,ooo,ooo, while that of Sierra Leone 
falls a little short of ;^ 1,000,000. Al- 
though these figures are very much 
higher than was the case a dozen years 
ago, the increase during the last three or 
four years has not been rapid, some arti- 
cles of export, including palm-oil, even 
showing a falling off in certain of the col- 
onies. The rubber industry has received 
a decided stimulus ; but it is exceedingly 
doubtful whether the supply will not soon 
show signs of exhaustion. Satisfactory 
points are the rise in the total of imports, 
largely consisting of cottons, in spite of 
the reduced influx of spirits, and the in- 
creased export of such products as timber 
from the Gold Coast, and coffee, cocoa, 
arrowroot, etc., from the Gold Coast and 
Niger. 

The trade of the interior Niger territo- 
ries, peopled by the enterprising Hausa 
race, though possessing, perhaps, greater 
potentialities than any other part of Cen- 
tral Africa, has not yet assumed large 
proportions, being probably little over 
;^ 1, 000,000. 



Telegraphs of Africa. 241 

Of the French colonies, Senegal stands 
first with respect to volume of trade, 
which, however, probably does not exceed 
;^ 1,500,000. In the vast region known as 
French Kongo, litde advance has yet been 
made. Nor has any decided success at- 
tended the heroic efforts of the Belgians 
to develop the resources of the Kongo 
Free State, where the total imports and 
exports fall short of ;^ 1,000,000. Ivory 
and India-rubber form at present almost 
the sole products of the greater part of the 
area, but, with judicious management, the 
supply of both might last for a great num- 
ber of years. It has been shown that both 
coffee and cocoa will thrive on the Upper 
Kongo; but many difficulties will have to 
be overcome before these can repay cul- 
tivation. Angola, though a very rich 
country, suffers from the want of en- 
couragement to merchants on the part 
of the Portuguese Government. Its trade, 
though it has reached about ^1,500,000, 
has of late not been in a satisfactory con- 
dition, having been injuriously affected by 

the fall in the price of coffee, which, with 
16 



242 Commerce, Railways, 

rubber and wax, forms the chief export. 
Of the German West African Colonies, 
the Kamerun has the most flourishing 
trade, amounting to nearly ;;{^5oo,ooo in 
1897. Spirits form a large item in the 
imports. 

In East Africa, the principal trade-cen- 
tre is, of course, Zanzibar, where, in 1896, 
the total trade with foreign countries 
amounted to nearly ;^2, 500,000. This 
figure is, however, swelled by the fact 
that it includes a considerable transit 
trade with the mainland opposite, espe- 
cially German East Africa. As regards 
its own proper trade, cloves form almost 
the only important article of export, and 
the island is at present suffering from 
overproduction, which has brought about 
a decline in the price of cloves. A satis- 
factory increase is reported in the import 
of piece goods. The trade of the main- 
land still remains within very narrow lim- 
its, though great possibilities exist. Thus, 
in British East Africa, the rubber trade 
only awaits encouragement to assume 
large proportions, while large supplies of 



Telegraphs of Africa. 243 

copra, cotton, etc., could be produced. In 
British Central Africa, the outlook is 
encouraging, owing to the large measure 
of success attained in the cultivation of 
coffee, while in Uganda, although the trade 
is at present trifling, signs of increased 
activity were noticed before the outbreak 
of the recent disturbances. In German 
East Africa, in spite of the display of 
much energy in the establishment of 
plantations, the total trade has not yet 
exceeded ;^750,ooo. Coffee is the most 
paying product, but unfortunately the 
fungus known as Hemeleia vastatrix has 
found its way into the plantations. Far- 
ther south, the port of Beira, destined to 
serve as the outlet for Mashonaland, 
has lately sprung into being, and already 
shows signs of considerable activity. 

It remains to speak of the progress 
which has been made of late years in 
opening up communication with the inte- 
rior of Africa by means of railways and 
telegraphs, which have now been recog- 
nised as indispensable aids to the exten- 
sion of commercial intercourse throughout 



244 Commerce, Railways, 

the continent. Owing to the manner in 
which its surface has been parcelled out 
among the European nations, it has come 
about that almost each colony or protecto- 
rate has its own scheme for a railway, des- 
tined to bring down the produce of its 
hinterland for shipment at its principal 
port. For Central Africa, the earliest 
schemes were those intended to re-enforce 
the navigable portions of streams as means 
of communication. Thus, in Senegal, the 
French, some years ago, constructed a 
line from the port of Dakar to the Lower 
Senegal, and commenced the construction 
of another from Kayes, at the head of the 
navigation on that river, across to the 
Upper Niger. Great difHculties were en- 
countered in this second section, and pro- 
gress ceased for a time, when the line had 
reached Bafulabe, at the junction of the 
two main branches of the Senegal. In 
1895 work was resumed, and the line has 
now crossed the Baling, and reached a 
place called Diubeba, about thirty miles 
beyond. Its gauge is one metre. Lately 
a new project has been started, which, if 



Telegraphs of Africa. 245 

carried out, will somewhat detract from 
the importance of the existing line ; it has 
been proposed to build a railway through 
from Konakry, on the coast of the Upper 
Niger, a distance no greater than that to 
be traversed by the line from Kayes. 

The great difficulty encountered by 
most of the African railway schemes is 
the fact that they all have to negotiate the 
crossing of the difficult outer escarpments 
of the interior plateau. Thus the Kongo 
Railway, intended to supply means of 
communication past the rapids of the 
lower river, has involved an enormous 
outlay and has proceeded exceedingly 
slowly. The greatest difficulties have 
been, however, at last surmounted, and 
the line has now come within measur- 
able distance of its goal, — Stanley Pool. 
According to the report of Major Thys, in 
December last, it had reached the 348th 
kilometre, out of a total of 388. A con- 
siderable traffic already exists on the por- 
tion completed, and there can be no doubt 
that when once trains reach the Upper 
Kongo, with its thousands of miles of 



246 Commerce, Railways, 

navigable waterways, a great impetus will 
be given to trade. While on the subject 
of the Kongo, it may be mentioned that 
new schemes have lately been set on foot 
for railway construction in the remoter 
parts of the basin, — in the northeast, 
southeast, and in the region of the 
Rapids of the Mobangi, the great 
northern tributary. 

Another railway which has been under 
construction for some years is that starting 
from St. Paul de Loanda, the capital of 
Angola, toward Ambaka and Malange. 
Difficulties in the way of bridging the 
streams have here too caused delays ; but 
it is hoped the line will in August next 
be completed to the end of its first section, 
the Lukalla River. The receipts per kilo- 
metre on the mileage open have steadily 
risen during the last few years. The com- 
pany constructing this line bears the 
ambitious title of " Royal Company of 
Trans-African Railways," it being hoped 
that a junction may be ultimately effected 
by its means with the Portuguese East 
Africa Colonies. More recent West Afri- 



Telegraphs of Africa. 247 

can schemes are those for lines starting 
inland from Sierra Leone, Lagos, and 
Swakopmund, the new port of German 
Southwest Africa. Some progress has 
been made with each of these, while rail- 
way surveys have also been carried out on 
the Gold Coast. 

Passing now to East Africa, we come to 
the important schemes for linking the 
coast with the great interior lakes. Both 
Germans and British have for some years 
aimed at connecting their coast settle- 
ments with the Victoria Nyanza; and it 
seemed at one time as if the former would 
carry through their project while the latter 
were deliberating. At last, however, the 
British scheme has been taken up energet- 
ically by the Government, and the progress 
so far has been rapid. Starting from 
Mombasa, the line has already passed the 
1 20th mile, and has proved of value in 
facilitating the passage of the Taru Desert ; 
but the country lying ahead, especially at 
the Kikuya encampment, will present 
more difficulties than those hitherto en- 
countered. The route has, however, been 



248 Commerce, Railways, 

carefully surveyed, and, with the efficient 
base of operations provided, it may be 
hoped that progress will continue to be 
rapid, and that in another five or six years 
the line will have reached its terminus at 
Port Alice in Berkeley Bay, Lake Victoria, 
656 miles from Mombasa. Not till this 
occurs can any great development in the 
trade of Uganda be looked for. In German 
East Africa, a short line of railway already 
penetrates inland, toward the borders of 
Usambara, but funds have not yet been 
provided for a more extended scheme. 
The idea most favoured is the construction 
of a line from Dar-es-Salaam to Ujiji, on 
Lake Tanganyika, with a branch north- 
ward from Tabora to Lake Victoria. An 
important scheme has been set on foot in 
British Central Africa, — Nyassaland, — for 
the making of a short railway across the 
Shire Highlands so as to supply commu- 
nication past the rapids by which the Shire 
River is obstructed. This would mate- 
rially improve what is known as the 
" Lakes Route " into Central Africa. To- 
ward the north, the French have com- 



Telegraphs of Africa. 249 

menced the construction of a line from 
their port of Dijibouti, on the Reel Sea, to 
the important town of Harrar, subject to 
the King of Abyssinia ; while the Italians 
have opened a short line inland from 
Massaua. From Suakim also a line is 
certain to be made by the British either 
to Berber or to Kassala. 

In South Africa, an important system of 
railways, starting from the ports of Cape 
Colony, Natal, and Delagoa Bay, and mak- 
ing for the mining districts of Kimberley 
and the Transvaal, is already in full work- 
ing order, though new lines are being now 
added. More nearly bearing on our sub- 
ject are the new lines destined to serve as 
highways to the rising settlements in 
Mashonaland and Matabeleland. The one 
of these which forms the continuation of 
the Cape line to Kimberley and Mafeking 
v/as opened through to Buluwayo on 
November 4th, 1897, having been com- 
pleted in a wonderfully short space of 
time considering its length ; the other, 
which starts from Beira on the East Coast, 
and is to end at Salisbury, in Mashona- 



250 Commerce, Railways, 

land, has not made such rapid progress, 
but has passed Chimoio, near the frontier, 
between British and Portuguese territory. 
A proposal has been made to unite SaHs- 
bury and Buluwayo by railway, and thus 
complete the circuit between the East and 
South Coasts. 

A brief mention only can be made of 
the telegraph lines which have accom- 
panied, and in some instances preceded, 
the lines of railway lately opened or 
planned. Both in East and West Africa, 
for instance, the Portuguese possessions 
have been provided with short lines, while, 
in British East Africa, one running north- 
ward from Mombasa to Lamu has been 
opened for several years ; but the most 
important line of all, and the one which 
has progressed most rapidly, is that which 
owes its inception to the energy of Mr. 
Cecil Rhodes, and goes by the name of 
the African Transcontinental Telegraph 
Line. Starting from the Cape, it makes 
its way to Buluwayo and Salisbury, and 
thence via Umtali to Tete on the Zambezi. 
It then cuts across to the Shire River, and 



Telegraphs of Africa, 251 

has already ascended the west shore of 
Lake Nyassa as far as Kota Kota. By 
the end of 1898 it is thought that it will 
reach the south end of Lake Tanganyika, 
while an extension still farther northward 
is proposed, so that it may eventually 
reach the Nile and form an uninterrupted 
chain between the two extremities of the 
continent. It is said that the newly 
opened section in Nyassaland is already 
used by the natives for communication 
with friends at a distance. 



THE MAP OF AFRICA. 



THE MAP OF AFRICA. 

BY H. K. CARROLL, LL.D. 

THE map of Africa has undergone 
wonderful, indeed, revolutionaryj 
changes in the last half century. Except 
in outline and certain general features, the 
Africa of 1898 bears little resemblance to 
the Africa of 1848. The changes are due, 
first, to the results of exploration, secondly, 
to the European greed for territory. 

It is rather strange that so large a por- 
tion of the continent should have remained 
unknown to the rest of the world until the 
last half of the present century. Africa 
was known for ages and ages before the 
Western world was discovered. We speak 
of America as new, but Africa is as old as 
civilisation or human history. When the 
United States celebrated, in 1876, the first 
centenary of its independence, this message 
was received from Egypt (I quote from 
memory) : 



256 The Map 

" The oldest country of the world sends greet- 
ings to the youngest." 

Egyptian civilisation was second to none 
in antiquity, unless, possibly, to that of 
Babylonia. The Nile, its great physical 
feature, has been the geographical puzzle 
of the centuries, from, if not before, 
Ptolemy to Stanley, to whom the honour 
of its solution belongs. The great explorer 
found its source not far from where the 
old Egyptian geographer conjectured it to 
be. Ptolemy's idea was that the mighty 
artery came from the heart of the conti- 
nent, rising in two lakes lying 4° or 
5 south of the equator. The fact is, it 
rises in the Victoria Nyanza, nearly all of 
which is below the equator, though it does 
not reach the fourth degree. The second 
lake is, of course, the Albert, which, how- 
ever, is not a source, as Sir Samuel Baker 
supposed, but only a back-water of the 
Nile. It will be noticed that the smaller 
map, representing Africa as it appeared 
in atlases fifty years ago, has no indica- 
tion of these lakes, nor of those of Tan- 
ganyika and Nyassa farther to the south. 



of Africa. 257 

These are a part of the results of recent 
exploration. 

One of the notable features of all the 
older maps is a chain of mountains repre- 
sented as extending across the continent 
from east to west, about five degrees north 
of the equator. In these fabled mountains, 
perhaps suggested by Mts. Kenia and 
Kilimanjaro, the Nile was supposed, as 
will be seen by the accompanying map, to 
have its rise. The mythical mountains 
disappear, and the Kongo is shown to be 
a much mightier river than the old map- 
makers knew. It does for South and 
Equatorial Africa what the Nile does for 
the northeastern quarter of the continent, 
drains an immense territory. Above the 
cataracts, by the side of which a railroad 
has been constructed, the noble river, with 
its many long tributaries, aggregating 
thousands of miles of navigable stream 
offers to commerce abundant transporta- 
tion facilities, and opens a country un- 
known to Europeans until the intrepid 
Stanley explored it. 

One now looks in vain for the equatorial 
17 



258 The Map 

country known for centuries to African 
map-makers as " Ethiopia." The great 
native kingdom of Uganda occupies part 
of the territory that bore the ancient and 
honourable name, and the rest of it is gath- 
ered into the State of Kongo, and " Ethi- 
opia," with the " Mountains of the Moon " 
as its northern boundary, disappears for- 
ever, probably. Thus do the practical 
geographers of the closing century sweep 
away ruthlessly some of the most charac- 
teristic features of the old African maps. 

The new Africa has no " unexplored 
regions " inhabited by all manner of 
ferocious four-footed beasts and creeping 
things. Elephants and lions and gorillas 
and reptiles there are in abundance ; but 
the spaces in old maps which were adorned 
with pictures of them are now filled with 
details of rivers, lakes, mountains, towns, 
and tribes. Fifty years ago, not even the 
location of tribes was known. " Wander- 
ing Bushmen " were indicated as having 
penetrated as far north as the equator, 
2,000 miles or more beyond the territory 
where they are actually found. Living- 



of Africa. 259 

stone, Stanley, and other active explorers 
have left but little for their successors to 
discover. Africa is no longer a terra in- 
cognita, and, while minor details remain to 
be settled by more leisurely and better 
equipped expeditions, nothing of great 
importance is likely to be revealed as to 
the geographical features of the continent. 
The political changes have been quite 
as remarkable as those due to exploration, 
and much more extensive. Unappropri- 
ated Africa is now only a comparatively 
inconsiderable portion of the whole conti- 
nent. There are two sections, one lying 
between Egypt and the French Sahara and 
Tripoli and the tenth degree of north lati- 
tude, and the other on the right bank 
of the Upper Niger, which as yet wear 
no European colour. They appear on the 
map as light yellow. The Niger territory 
will, however, soon be divided between 
France and England, if the Anglo-French 
Commission, sitting in Paris, can reach an 
agreement. Doubtless the larger part will 
a few months hence be annexed to the 
immense French territory which surrounds 



26o The Map 

it on the north and west. England would 
be satisfied if she could have the triangular 
strip indicated by the dotted lines running 
south from Say to the border-line between 
English Lagos and French Dahomey, and 
with a reasonable hinterland for its Gold 
Coast Territory. Within a year the lines 
between French Dahomey and German 
Togoland have been changed, so that the 
latter now extends north to and including 
Gambaga, and west to the White Volta 
River. This extension is somewhat faintly 
indicated on the map. ! 

Doubtless the British red, which covers 
Egypt and Nubia, will be extended ere- 
long to the northern border of British 
East Africa, thus making the Nile a Brit- 
ish stream from source to delta. The 
French Marchand expedition, whose pur- 
pose was to annex some of the Nile terri- 
tory, appears to have met with defeat. At 
last accounts, nearly all the force had 
deserted the indomitable Frenchman, who 
still refused to abandon entirely his enter- 
prise. 

Abyssinia appears in our map with 



of Africa. 261 

much larger territory than it was repre- 
sented as having in most other maps, pub- 
lished as late even as January ist, 1898. 
It was then represented as lying within 
the Italian Sphere of Influence, with Brit- 
ish East Africa for the western and south- 
ern boundary, and the Indian Ocean for 
the eastern. Abyssinia has emerged an 
independent kingdom with greatly en- 
larged boundaries, and the Italian posses- 
sions have shrunken to the province of 
Eritrea, on the Red Sea, and Somaliland, 
on the Indian Ocean. The portion 
printed in deep colour indicates Abyssinia 
proper; the rest is territory conceded to 
Menelek by English and Italian treaties. 
Adis Adaba has just been made the 
capital. 

There are six countries bearing the tint 
of Abyssinia, — Morocco, Liberia, Kongo, 
South African Republic, and Orange Free 
State, besides Menelek's kingdom. These 
are classed as independent native States, 
although Kongo is really as much Belgian 
as Egypt is English. These are the only 
native States remaining. All the rest, ex- 



262 The Map 

cept the yellow tinted desert west of Egypt, 
is under European control. In the last 
half century nearly the whole continent has 
been divided up between England, France, 
Belgium, and Germany ; and even the 
two Republics in South Africa are dom- 
inated by a population of European ori- 
gin, and the Transvaal owes suzerainty to 
England. 

Fifty years ago England had only the 
extreme southern end of the continent, 
with small holdings on the West Coast 
north of the equator. Now its possessions 
are well-nigh continuous from Cape Town 
to Alexandria ; and it is the dream of 
Cecil Rhodes to connect the two at no 
distant day by telegraph, and to consoli- 
date, in one magnificent empire of British 
South Africa, all the territory south of 
Lake Nyassa, save the German and Por- 
tuguese possessions. 

France had only Senegal and Algiers at 
the date when the smaller map was made. 
Portugal had the same coast-line then as 
now; she has only added hinterlands to 
her Angola and Mozambique territories. 



of Africa. 263 

Turkey still holds Tripoli, but has lost 
Tunis and, practically, Egypt. Spain has 
made no appreciable gain. Germany, 
Italy, and Belgium are altogether new- 
comers. 

In the eighteenth century the civilised 
world was engaged, some one has said, in 
stealing Africans from Africa, while in the 
nineteenth it has been stealing Africa 
from the Africans. How thoroughly this 
has been accomplished is shown by the 
accompanying map. 



OCT U 



ms 



